Just advertising departments with legs and high heels. Richard Avedon More Quotes by Richard Avedon More Quotes From Richard Avedon My parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read. Richard Avedon vanity parent house It's in trying to direct the traffic between Artiface [sic] and Candor, without being run over, that I'm confronted with the questions about photography that matter most to me. Richard Avedon photography running trying The pictures have a reality for me that the people don't. It is through the photographs that I know them. Richard Avedon photographer reality people I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could just work with my eyes alone. To get a satisfactory print, one that contains all that you intended, is very often more difficult and dangerous than the sitting itself. When I’m photographing, I immediately know when I’ve got the image I really want. But to get the image out of the camera and into the open, is another matter. Richard Avedon hate eye wish My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. Richard Avedon clue photographer reading 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 fashion important way 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. Richard Avedon portraits photography people When I was a boy, my family took great care with our snapshots. We really planned them. We made compositions. We posed in front of expensive cars, homes, that werent ours. We borrowed dogs. Almost every family picture taken of us when I was young had a different borrowed dog in it. Richard Avedon taken dog home Faces are the ledgers of our experience. Richard Avedon faces People, unprotected by their roles, become isolated in beauty and intellect and illness and confusion. Richard Avedon roles confusion people He sleeps fastest who sleeps alone. Richard Avedon single-life sleep I see pictures of myself and I always knew that what I was feeling didn't look like that guy in the pictures. Richard Avedon guy feelings looks How many pictures have you torn up because you hate them? What ends up in your scrapbook? The pictures where you look like a good guy and a good family man, and the children look adorable - and they're screaming the next minute. I've never seen a family album of screaming people. Richard Avedon hate men children A portrait isn't a fact but an opinion - an occasion rather than a truth. Richard Avedon portraits opinion facts i'm beginning to feel like this. caught the incredible sunshine just in the nick of time today on my walk. the wall of rain approaching from the west desert was pretty spectacular, too. along with being gorgeous, it was sooo muddy. which made driving home in no shoes so very fun :) if only i could post photos here! a picture is worth a thousand words, yes? 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. Richard Avedon wall photography fun There is no truth in photography. There is no truth about anyone's person. Richard Avedon photography persons One man's fantasy is another man's job. Richard Avedon fantasy jobs men Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is...the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own. Richard Avedon photography may thinking Marilyn Monroe gave more to the still camera than any actress, any woman I've ever photographed; infinitely more patient, more demanding of herself and more comfortable in front of the camera than away from it. Richard Avedon actresses cameras patient A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is 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. Richard Avedon picture someone looks knowledge