Richard Avedon Quotes

Richard Avedon was an influential American fashion and portrait photographer. Here are some memorable quotes from him:

1. “A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he’s being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.”
2. “My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.”
3. “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.”
4. “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.”
5. “I think all art is about control – the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.”
6. “You don’t have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing stranger than truth.”
7. “I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could work with my eyes alone.”
8. “The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion.”
9. “Real people move, they bear with them the element of time. It is this fourth dimension of people that I try to capture in a photograph.”
10. “All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

These quotes not only provide a glimpse into Avedon’s philosophy towards photography but also offer deep insights into the relationship between the photographer, the subject, and the viewer.