Avedon Photography Quotes & Sayings

There is no truth in photography. There is no truth about anyone's person. — Richard Avedon

I'm afraid you're going to break me, Quinn."
"Don't let me." The challenge in his eyes intensified, heating up and pouring strength into me. "Don't you let me fucking do that, Emilie. Don't let anyone break you. You're stronger than that. — Lyla Payne

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

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

The books that help you the most are those which make you think the most. — Theodore Parker

That ought to go well. Watch out for flying hedgehogs! — Erin Hunter

This prolific and inventive photographer (Edward Steichen) must be given credit for virtually inventing modern fashion photography, and as the tohousands of high-quality original prints in the Conde Nast archives prove, only Irving Penn and Richard Avedon have since emerged as serious historical rivals. — William A. Ewing

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. — Richard Avedon

I hate the idea of theatre just being an evening pastime. It should be emotionally and intellectually demanding. I love football. The level of analysis that you listen to on the terraces is astonishing. If people did that in the theatre ... but they don't. They expect to sit back and not participate. — Sarah Kane

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. — Richard Avedon

How is it possible to write one's autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this? — Malcolm X

I don't really remember the day when I stood behind my camera with Henry Kissinger on the other side. I am sure he doesn't remember it either. But this photograph is here now to prove that no amount of kindness on my part could make this photograph mean exactly what he.. or even I.. wanted it to mean. It's a reminder of the wonder and terror that is a photograph. — Richard Avedon

If I could do what I want with my eyes alone, I would be happy. — Richard Avedon

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

There have to be more important things going on in the world than my past. — Charlie Sheen

I felt like I was in the best photography school in the world - I had Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Richard Avedon and Irving Penn teach me. — Helena Christensen

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

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. — Richard Avedon

There was no such person as Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe was an invention of hers. A genius invention that she created, like an author creates a character. She understood photography, and she also understood what makes a great photograph. She related to it as if she were giving a performance. She gave more to the still camera than any actress-any woman- I've ever photographed. — Richard Avedon

We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be.
PERFORMANCE — Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon is a true genius of photography and one of the greatest artists of our time. — Donatella Versace

O witches, O misery, O hate, to you has my treasure been entrusted! I contrived to purge my mind of all human hope. On all joy, to strangle it, I pounced with the strength of a wild beast. I called to the plagues to smother me in blood, in sand, misfortune was my God. — Arthur Rimbaud

I did not find that writing a diary with a lead male character differed in any essential way from writing one with a female character. They all had the same challenges in terms of attempting to establish an identity, coping with loneliness, friendships, relationships. — Kathryn Lasky

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do, — Walter Isaacson