Fashion is where I make my living. I'm not knocking it; it's a pleasure to make a living that way. Then there's the deeper pleasure of doing my portraits.
Interpretation
Fashion provides a livelihood, but the deeper joy lies in creating portraits.
In this quote, Richard Avedon expresses the dual nature of his career as both a fashion photographer and a portrait artist. While he acknowledges that fashion photography is how he earns a living and finds pleasure in it, he emphasizes that the true fulfillment comes from the art of creating portraits, which allows for a more profound connection and expression of human identity.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a photography workshop to discuss the balance between commercial and artistic work.
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.
I am, and forever will be, devastated by the gift of Audrey Hepburn before my camera. I cannot lift her to greater heights. She is already there. I can only record. I cannot interpret her. There is no going further than who she is. She has achieved in herself her ultimate portrait.
I never wanted to be called an artist. I wanted to be called a photographer.
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.
My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.
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.
Fashion is only the attempt to realize art in living forms and social intercourse.
My wish is to be known only thru my work.
One thing I tend to do is ask actors tons and tons of questions to try to get at what they're thinking but also to expose to them whatever box they've placed their characters in - to blow up that box so the journey can begin.
My art is about paying attention - about the extremely dangerous possibility that you might be art.
But, after all, the aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.
I am an artist at living - my work of art is my life.
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