Avedon Speaks

One of my favorite photographers is Richard Avedon (1923-2004). He was and remains one of the few photographers whose work is instantly recognizable. Sometimes, when I'm looking for inspiration, I look up quotes from some of my favorite photographers. Not to copy their style, but to try to put myself inside their heads.  Avedon's quotes are among my favorites:

"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."   

"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."

"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. He's implicated in what's happening, and he has a certain real power over the result."

"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."

"I always prefer to work in the studio. It isolates people from their environment. They become in a sense...symbolic of themselves. I often feel that people come to me to be photographed as they would go to a doctor or a fortune teller - to find out how they are."

"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."

...and my favorite,

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

You can find more info about Richard Avedon on his official web site. 

A Google Image search will bring up many examples of his work.