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.
Interpretation
A portrait photographer relies on their subject to help create a narrative that they envision.
In this quote, Richard Avedon emphasizes the collaborative nature of portrait photography, where the photographer's vision is brought to life through the participation of the subject. The subject unknowingly contributes to an artistic story that is unique to each photo, highlighting the interplay between the artist's imagination and the reality that the subject embodies.
In practice
Use this quote in a photography workshop to explore the relationship between photographer and subject.
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.
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.
I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.
I want a storm to come and flood us into a song that no one wrote.
It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.
He with a graceful pride, While his rider every hand survey'd, Sprung loose, and flew into an escapade; Not moving forward, yet with every bound Pressing, and seeming still to quit his ground.
The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments
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