For me, the most obvious artist who has consistently demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, who has taken chances with photography and has shown an unwillingness to play it safe is Thomas Ruff. Having worked with all kinds of photographs/images - his own, licensed one, appropriated ones, artificially created one - Ruff’s thinking is far ahead of that of most of contemporary photography. I might not always like each new series, but Ruff’s fearless exploration of the medium photography - of how images can be made - is very, very impressive. Find a selection of his work here.