Artist Research - Richard Avedon - Portraits

Avedon was always interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul of its subject. As his reputation as a photographer became widely known, he brought in many famous faces to his studio and photographed them with a large-format 8x10. His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a sheer white background. Avedon would at times provoke reactions from his portrait subjects by guiding them into uncomfortable areas of discussion or asking them psychologically probing questions. Through these means he would produce images revealing aspects of his subject's character and personality that were not typically captured by others.

Portraits Although avedon first earned his reputation as a fashion photographer, his greatest achievement has been his reinvention of the genre of photographic portraiture. his ability to express the essence of his subject. avedon’s pictures continue to bring us a closer, more intimate view of the great and the famous. the portraits are often well lit and in front of white backdrops, with no props or extraneous details to distract from their person - from the essential specificity of face, gaze, dress, and gesture. when printed, the images regularly contain the dark outline of the film in which the image was framed.

Avedon's photographs confront us with miners, unemployed
people, drifters, farmers, cowboys, and convicts, often at
life-size or over. most of those photographed try to give as
little of themselves away as possible. they appear to show
no feelings beyond scepticism and reserve. in the bar,
or at the rodeo, or wherever avedon has found them
they may have been emotionally involved, cheerful,
uninhibited, stressed or sad: but in front of his camera,
they appear totally inward.
there is barely a trace of the theatrical expressiveness or the
extravagant gestures that avedon elicits from the actors,
singers or writers who sit for him. these portraits are
expressive nevertheless. their hard physical labour, the
harshness of their everyday lives, their struggle for survival,
has etched their features and their souls as a river gouges
out a canyon. their faces become landscapes, and their bodies
territories, on which they carry their garments around with them.