Richard Avedon

Richard was born on 15 May 1923, in New York.  His parents were Russian / Jewish immigrants.

Richard went to Dewitt Clinton School, where he worked on the school newspaper.  He then moved onto the Columbia University but aged 17 he dropped out and joined the Merchant Marine’s Photographic section, in 1942.  There he mainly took personnel id photographs, with his Rolleiflex camera that his father gave him.  Later he was going on missions to photograph ship wrecks.

In 1944 he got a job as a photographer in a department store.  At first he made a living working in advertising.  It was here where Richard was noticed by Alexey Brodovitch, the art director for the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar.  Richard went on to be a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar, In 1946  Richard set up his own studio and began photographing for Vogue and Life magazines as well as Harper’s Bazaar.  It was here where Richard became very well known for his stylistically innovative fashion work through him insisting that his models showed emotions like smiling and laughing, something that at that time was new, models were used to being emotionless and indifferent to the presence of the camera.

In 1966 Richard left Harper’s Bazaar to work as a staff photographer for Vogue magazine, moving up to the position of Lead Photographer.

Although well known for his fashion work, Richard is today better known for how he reinvented portrait photography by expressing the essence of the subject of the portrait, bringing us a closer more intimate view of the famous people he photographed.  In fact as he became more famous he photographed US Presidents, political leaders, film stars, and more.

John F Kennedy with his wife Jackie

Like David Bailey and Irving Penn, Richard concentrated on the subject with his well lit, white backdrop and no use of props, the style of portrait photography that I like myself where the attention is on the subject and not their surroundings.

Also Richard began to branch out away from fashion photography, photographing the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, the fall of the Berlin Wall and during this period he took some famous portraits of The Beatles in 1967 (which became one of the first major rock poster series) and again in 1968.

In 1979 – 84 Richard worked on his famous “In the American West” book which featured normal everyday people he saw on his travels, but this was slated by some who were shocked how he treated these ordinary people with the same dignity and respect that he had always shown to more rich and famous people.

Sadly, on 1st October 2004, whilst shooting an assignment for the New Yorker,  and also working on a new project titled Democracy which focused on the 2004 US Presidential elections, Richard died of a brain haemorrhage aged 81.

But Richard’s legacy has been how he has changed how portraits, and sometimes their subjects, are seen and his portraits have influenced a number of photographers, and their styles, ever since.

Some of Richard’s photographs are shown below:

 

Sources of information

National Portrait Gallery, Professional Photography, Digital Photo Pro, richardavedon.com

 

Evaluation of Images

Richard, like Herb, has taken a wide range of types of portrait, but seems to have preferred the three quarter length style.  He has not cropped as tightly as David Bailey, allowing his portraits to have some space around his subjects.

The majority of Richard's portraits have been taken with plain backgrounds, concentrating the viewer on the subject by removing any possible distractions.  In fact during his "In the American West" project Richard is said to have taken his plain backdrop with him to capture those people he wanted to photograph against a plain background, as opposed to their surroundings.

In most of Richard's portraits the subject is looking towards the camera, maintaining the photographer to subject link through the portrait .

The majority of Richard's portraits are more formal than some photographers, possibly due to the more formal formats that were expected at the time, although Richard had been taking ID photographs for years and this may have lead to this approach being used more.

The square shape of some of Richard's portraits was as a result of the format of the camera.

Richard's photographs display a good tonal range with good even lighting, even during his "In the American West" where he was working on location often with existing light.