Essay About Extravagant Gestures And Staff Photographer

You Are the Best
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richard avedon
was born in new york on may 15, 1923 of russian-jewish
immigrant parents.
he attended dewitt clinton high school in the bronx,
but never completed an academic education.
in 1940, at age 17, avedon dropped out of high school
and joined the merchant marines photographic section,
taking personnel identification photos. later, he went on
several missions to photograph shipwrecks.
upon his return in 1944, he found a job as a photographer
in a department store. Initially, avedon made
his living primarily through work in advertising.
as a staff photographer for harpers bazaar and later
for vogue, avedon became well known for his stylistically
innovative fashion work, often set in vivid and surprising
locales.
if a day goes by without my doing something related to
photography, its as though Ive neglected something
essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to
wake up, he said in 1970.
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.
avedons 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.
avedons 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.
in 1989 received an honorary doctorate from the
royal college of art in london and in 1992 he became the
first staff photographer for the new yorker.
the worlds most famous photographer trumpeted a 2002
story on avedon in the new york times. it was a title he wore for
decades. back in 1958, he was named one of the worlds 10
finest photographers by popular photography magazine