Have the photographers failed to deliver?

No, it isn't just AA and Henri Cartier BRESSON (his last name counts). Take a look at this link:

http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/exhibi...

There are so many people listed I don't feel like typing them all out. Digital has created a new generation of master photographers, you just have to look.

Jean-François Rauzier is particularly interesting to me. I love how he used Photoshop to stack hundreds of photos to make one image with literally everything in sharp focus (not hyperfocal distance.) Others use the scanner and combine it with photography. Levine uses 3d imagery. I saw a documentary on this - he actually had to reshoot and the Queen of England gave him a second sitting. The absolute master is still Jerry Uelsmann, who managed to be one of the most creative photographers alive both in the traditional manner (and time) and in the new digital environment.

Check it out. It's a brave new world and these guys are charging in full bore!

Or is it the critics who are lacking knowledge - for example the various photographers that undertake considerable effort to create surreal scenes without the easy out of technology modifications (Photoshop). But the modern slide lift (or whatever they are called) cameras that allow taking a scene and making it look like a model. One problem for you is that any "technology" some individual comes up with is quickly available to everyone so harking back to the few artsy individuals of Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier is not possible. Cameron and Spielberg can stand out because they spend $100 million and produce one of a few dozen movies available each year. Still photographers don't have that kind of self limiting access to the public - not even the covers of Life magazine.

Anselm Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson were doing photography when equipment was heavy and expensive and lab work was not done at every corner drug store. They were very good and did not have much competition to speak of. Today, anybody can walk into a department store and walk out with a digital camera and then post every poor and mediocre shot that they've taken to a web page or social networking site. Heck, they don't even need a camera; they can take pictures with their cell phones. Do a search on images of Yosemite. Google comes up with "About 10,100,000 results". Adams never had that much competition.

I submit to you that there are great photographers out there, probably more than there were in the day of Adams and Cartier-Bresson. But you can't find them in all the noise. For example, I have seen some remarkable work on sites like http://1x.com/ I'm sure there are plenty of others.

One other thing. Your comparison to Spielberg and Cameron is not quite appropriate for photography. Those gentlemen have vision (although derivative), but they have hundreds of people at hand to put forward that vision. Photography is a solitary craft.

Comparing film directors like Spielberg with photographers is like comparing chalk and cheese.

There are many photographers around now who are better in their way (and time) than AA and HCB were in theirs.