And 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. I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible
— Richard Avedon (via lamodeoutre)
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.
— Richard Avedon (via cmorring)
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.
— Richard Avedon (via lynnlane)
I knew they loved their dogs, and I said, ‘If I seem a little hesitant, a little disturbed, it’s because my taxi ran over a dog.’ And both of their faces dropped, because they love dogs, a lot more than they love Jews. The expression on their faces is true, because you can’t evoke an expression that doesn’t come out of the life of a person.
— Richard Avedon on photographing The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 1957. (via punchtape)
We all perform. It’s what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintentionally. It’s a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognised as what we’d like to be.
— Richard Avedon (via malakeh)
