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?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the emotional and spiritual connection a photographer has with their subjects, suggesting that taking photographs can involve a personal sacrifice.
In this quote, Richard Avedon explores the profound relationship between the artist and their art, proposing that each photograph captured may extract a part of the photographer's essence or emotional state. Avedon suggests that through the act of photography, a photographer not only captures a moment but also invests their own soul and feelings into the image, raising questions about the nature of art and personal identity.
In practice
In a discussion about the emotional impact of photography during a photography exhibition.
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.
The great hope is that people who wouldn't normally make films will be making them. Suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father's camera and for once the so called professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever - and it will really become an art form.
That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!
There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one translation alone is to put robin redbreast in a cage.
Because of 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead,' I can't pitch a modest little zombie film which is meant to be sociopolitical.
In song and dance, man forgets how to walk and speak and is on the way into flying into the air, dancing... his very gestures express enchantment.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.