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Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon Quotes

Photographer

Richard Avedon was an American photographer renowned for his distinctive portrait photography style. His work spanned multiple genres, including fashion, art, and celebrity portraiture. Avedon's photographs are known for their direct, sometimes confrontational style, often challenging the boundaries of traditional photography.

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Famous Richard Avedon Quotes

“I believe that you've got to love your work so much that it is all you want to do.”

Want Believe I Believe Love You Photographer Love Your Work

Author:Richard Avedon

“It's in trying to direct the traffic between Artiface [sic] and Candor, without being run over, that I'm confronted with the questions about photography that matter most to me.”

Trying Matter Running Photography Direct Photographer Traffic Candor

Author:Richard Avedon

“I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the yes. I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.”

Persons Light Happens Force White Series Photographer Backgrounds Narrative Composition Seduction Exquisite

Author:Richard Avedon

“My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues.”

Reading Photographer Photograph Surface Clue Great Faith Below The Surface Standards Of Beauty

Author:Richard Avedon

“Snapshots that have been taken of me working show something I was not aware of at all, that over and over again I'm holding my own body or my own hands exactly like the person I'm photographing. I never knew I did that, and obviously what I'm doing is trying to feel, actually physically feel, the way he or she feels at the moment I'm photographing them in order to deepen the sense of connection.”

Way Feels Trying Persons Has Beens Moments Shows Body Hands Order My Own Taken Connections Photographer Snapshots

Author:Richard Avedon

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

Inspirational Photography Cameras Photographer Photograph Accurate Accuracy Photography By Photographers Inspirational Photography Photo Shoots Camera And Photography Photojournalism Digital Photography Film Photography Photography And Film

Author:Richard Avedon

“A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

Moments Facts Emotion Opinion Photography Photographer Photograph Transformed Accurate Portraits Photography By Photographers Inspirational Photography Photo Shoots Digital Photography Film Photography Photography And Film

Author:Richard Avedon

“The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion.”

Moments Facts Emotion Opinion Photography Photographer Photograph Transformed Photography By Photographers Inspirational Photography Photo Shoots Digital Photography Film Photography Photography And Film

Author:Richard Avedon

“My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.”

People Photography Cameras Photographer Photograph Portraits Snapshots Camera And Photography Self Portrait Photography Black And White Photography Capturing A Moment Photography

Author:Richard Avedon

“I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible.”

Knows Made Photography Photographer Accidents

Author:Richard Avedon

“When you pose for a photograph, it's behind a smile that isn't yours. You are angry and hungry and alive. What I value in you is that intensity. I want to make portraits as intense as people.”

People Want Values Behinds Alive Photography Angry Photographer Photograph Hungry Intense Intensity Portraits Behind A Smile

Author:Richard Avedon

“A portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture. The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in someone else willing to take part in a fiction he cannot possibly know about.”

Knows Persons Fiction Subjects Willing Depends Photography Photographer Portraits

Author:Richard Avedon

“Photography has always reminded me of the second child.. trying to prove itself. The fact that it wasn't really considered an art.. that it was considered a craft.. has trapped almost every serious photographer.”

Trying Children Art Facts Serious Prove Photography Photographer Crafts Trapped Prove It

Author:Richard Avedon

“There's always been a separation between fashion and what I call my 'deeper' work. Fashion is where I make my living. I'm not knocking it. It's a pleasure to make a living that way. It's pleasure and then there's the deeper pleasure of doing my portraits. It's not important what I consider myself to be, but I consider myself to be a portrait photographer.”

Way Important Pleasure Fashion Photographer Deeper Separation Portraits Knocking

Author:Richard Avedon

“And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible.”

Ifs Knows Made Existence Essentials Photography Wake Up Photographer Forgotten Accidents Related Neglected

Author:Richard Avedon

“The way someone who's being photographed presents himself to the camera, and the effect of the photographer's response on that presence, is what the making of a portrait is all about.”

Way Effects Cameras Response Photographer Portraits

Author:Richard Avedon

“Camera lies all the time. It’s all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you… the moment you’ve made a choice, you’re lying about something larger. Lying is an ugly word. I don’t mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.”

Want Writing Mean Doe Made Moments Lying Artist Choices Picks Cameras Paint Photographer Ugly You Choose

Author:Richard Avedon

“If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn't it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?”

Ifs Giving Soul Bits Pieces Mines Giving Up Photographer Photograph Stealing

Author:Richard Avedon

“The pictures have a reality for me that the people don't. It is through the photographs that I know them.”

People Knows Reality Photographer Photograph

Author:Richard Avedon

“Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is...the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own.”

Thinking Humans May Sometimes My Own Photography Concern Photographer Predicaments

Author:Richard Avedon

“Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art.”

Ifs Art Levels Photographer

Author:Richard Avedon

“I am always stimulated by people. Almost never by ideas.”

People Ideas Photographer

Author:Richard Avedon

“I never wanted to be called an artist. I wanted to be called a photographer.”

Wanted Artist Photographer

Author:Richard Avedon

About the Author

Born: May 15, 1923
Died: October 1, 2004
Known for: Photographer
Quotes: 60

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