
Richard Avedon isnât a street photographerâ nor did he consider himself one. However, he did shoot street photography in his life, in Italy, New York, Santa Monica, and more.
I was particularly drawn to Richard Avedon because I have a fascination with portraiture and the human face. Even for my personal street photography, I might consider it âstreet portraiture.â
I have recently binged on everything I could about Avedonâ and have gained a ton of inspiration from his photography, his love of life, and his personal philosophies. I hope you enjoy these lessons as much as I did.
1. Your photos are more about yourself (than your subject)

One of the touchy subjects when photographing a subject is to capture their âauthenticâ selfâ and not impose so much of yourself onto them.
However Avedon took the opposite approach. He openly acknowledged that as a photographerâ it was he who was in control. His vision of an artist was more important than how his subjects saw themselves.
In a senseâ I think Avedon was striving to capture what he thought was the âtrueâ authenticity of his subjects.
Avedon starts off by sharing that most people have things about themselves that they donât want to show:
âI am not necessarily interested in the secret of a person. The fact that there are qualities a subject doesnât want me to observe is an interesting fact (interesting enough for a portrait). It then becomes a portrait of someone who doesnât want something to show. That is interesting.â
Avedon elaborates on capturing the âtruthâ behind a person:
âThere is no truth in photography. There is no truth about anyoneâs person. My portraits are much more about me than they are about the people I photograph. I used to think that it was a collaboration, that it was something that happened as a result of what the subject wanted to project and what the photographer wanted to photograph. I no longer think it is that at all.â
“It is complicated and unresolved in my mind because I believe in moral responsibility of all kinds. I feel I have no right to say, âThis is the way it isâ and in another way, I canât help myself. It is for me the only way to breathe and to live. I could say it is the nature of art to make such assumptions but there has never been an art like photography before. You cannot make a photograph of a person without that personâs presence, and that very presence implies truth. 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 truth.”

He continues by sharing the control he has over the subject (and scene):
âThe photographer has complete control, the issue is a moral one and it is complicated. Everyone comes to the camera with a certain expectation and the deception on my part is that I might appear to be indeed part of their expectation. If you are painted or written about, you can say: but thatâs not me, thatâs Bacon, thatâs Soutine; thatâs not me, thatâs Celine.â
In another interview, Avedon continues sharing his thoughts on the conundrum of showing âtruthâ in a portrait:
“It is complicated and unresolved in my mind because I believe in moral responsibility of all kinds. I feel I have no right to say, âThis is the way it isâ and in another way, I canât help myself. It is for me the only way to breathe and to live. I could say it is the nature of art to make such assumptions but there has never been an art like photography before. You cannot make a photograph of a person without that personâs presence, and that very presence implies truth.â
The part below is pure gold:
âA 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 truth.â

In another interview, Avedon elaborates on the distinction between âaccuracyâ and âtruthââ and how subjective it is:
“[Photographs are] representations of whatâs there. âThis jacket is cut this wayâ; thatâs very accurate. This really did happen in front of this camera at this⌠at a given moment. But itâs no more truth⌠the given moment is part of what Iâm feeling that day, what theyâre feeling that day, and what I want to accomplish as an artist.”
Avedon also shares his thoughts on how cameras can lie, and how photographers say what they want to say (depending on when they hit the shutter):
âCamera lies all the time. Itâs all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you⌠the moment youâve made a choice, youâre lying about something larger. Lying is an ugly word. I donât mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.â
Takeaway point
I think when weâre shooting on the streetsâ we are painting our subjective views of the world with our camera (rather than an âobjectiveâ view of the world). I think in street photographyâ we have less of an ethical duty (than documentary or photojournalists) to show the âtruth.â
I think ultimately the photos we take (as Avedon said) â are more of a reflection who we are (than the subjects).
For example, I am personally drawn to people who look depressed, lost, and stuck in solitude. Even though I am a generally optimistic personâ my studies in sociology have trained me to be a social critic. I tend to see a lot of negativity in everyday life.
However on the flip side, I know a lot of photographers whose photos are very happy. For example, Kurt Kamka has photos of people all (or mostly) smiling. He is one of the happy guys I have met, and his positivity and love shows through his photos.
So know that although photography is a form of communication and a two-way street between you and your subject, you still have the ultimate control as a photographer.
Make your photos personal, and realize that the photos you take are more of a self-portrait of yourself (than anything else).
2. On controversy

Richard Avedonâs photos have always been controversial. Many of his critics called him cold, calculating, and very unjust towards his subjects. Many of his subjects also donât like the way they end up being portrayed.
a) Photographing people looking their best (or not)
In the below excerpt, Avedon shares his thoughts that everyone is always trying to look their best (which isnât always accurate). Furthermore, he doesnât take these complaints too seriously:
JEFFREY BROWN: Not everyone is always happy with the results. Avedon took this portrait of the renowned literary critic Harold Bloom.
RICHARD AVEDON: And he said, âI hate that picture. It doesnât look like me.â Well, for a very smart man to think that a picture is supposed to look like him⌠would you go to Modigliani and say, âI want it to look like me?â
JEFFREY BROWN: But, see, we think of photography differently, donât we? We take pictures of each other all the time, and we want it⌠we expect it to look like us.
RICHARD AVEDON: 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 adorableâ and theyâre screaming the next minute. Iâve never seen a family album of screaming people.
JEFFREY BROWN: You do have, though, people say, âI donât like this; this isnât me.â
RICHARD AVEDON: Pretty general response.
JEFFREY BROWN: It doesnât worry you?
RICHARD AVEDON: No. Worry? I mean, itâs a picture, for Godâs sake.
b) On manipulating his subjects

Furthermore, there have been times when Avedon would purposefully manipulate his subjects to get a photo he wantedâ which he felt was more âauthenticâ:
âThere are times when it is necessary to trick the sitter into what you want. but never for the sake of the trick.â
For example when he took this famous photo of the Windsors:
âI would go every night to the casino in Niceâ and I watched them. I watched the way she was with him, the way they were with people. I wanted to bring out the loss of humanity in them. Not the meanness and there was a lot of meanness and narcissism. So I knew exactly what I had to try to accomplish during the sitting. I photographed them in their hotel suite in New York. And they had their pug dogs, and they had their âladies home journalâ faces onâ they were posing, royally. And nothing (if not for a second)â anything I had observed when they were gambling, presented to me. And I did a kind of âliving by your witsâ. I knew they loved their dogs. and I told them, âIf i seem a bit hesitant or disturbedâ its because my taxi ran over a dog.â and both of their faces dropped, because they loved dogs, a lot more than they loved Jews. The expression on their faces is trueâ because you canât evoke an expression that doesnât come out of the life of a person.â
c) On capturing people when they feel vulnerable

In his greatest project (in my opinion) âIn the American Westâ â he photographed a girl named Sandra Bennett (who ended up being on the front cover of the book). She is beautiful with freckles, but pensiveâ and looks a bit disconcerted.
Years after he took the photo, Avedon and some reporters tracked down his past subjects. Sandra (now an adult) told the reporter:
âThe picture was awfulâ it was your worst hair day, clothes day, the worst photo of your life you want to bury. I was mortified. I was a senior in high school, I was homecoming queen, and I had this photo coming to haunt me.â
Sandra then confronts Avedon face-to-face and says the following:
âWhat was very difficult for meâ was that you caught me vulnerable here. But also bare-bottom, very exposed – where I tried to cover everything.â
Avedon then says in response to Sandra how (ultimately) he is the one who had control over the situation:
âYou canât say you werenât there in the picture you have to acceptâ you are there, and the control is with the photographer. I have the control in the end, and I canât do it alone. You have a lot to sayâ which by that I mean the way you look, confront the camera, all the experience whether you are trusting or not. In the end, I can tear the pictures upâ choose the smiling or serious one. Or exaggerate something through the printing. It is lending yourself to artists.â
d) Photography vs reportage/journalism

Avedon also had some interesting views when it comes to photography â being more like fiction (than anything else):
âI think the larger issue is that photography is not reportage, it is not journalismâ it is fiction. When I go to the west and do the working class (it is more about the working class than the west)âit is my view. Like John Wayne is Hollywoodâs view. So it means my idea of the working class is a fiction.â
e) On photography being invasive
Avedon shares some thoughts on his work being invasiveâ and how important it is to make âdisturbingâ photos that emotionally effect the viewer:
âItâs so strange to me that anyone would ever think that a work of art shouldnât be disturbing or shouldnât be invasive. Thatâs the property of workâ that’s the arena of a work of art. It is to disturb, it to make you think, to make you feel. If my work didnât disturb from time to time, it would be a failure in my own eyes. Itâs meant to disturbâ in a positive way.â
Takeaway point:
I donât think any artist who wants to achieve greatness can do so without pissing some people off.
But as a photographerâ who are you ultimately trying to please? Yourself, or your critics?
Who cares about these critics who may hate on your work. They are too busy sitting on their laptops, and criticizing the work of others (because they are jealous, or just dissatisfied with their own work).
Avedon had tons of criticism in his work in his lifetime. But he ignored it. He was constantly furious with doing his workâ creating new work, breaking out of the little boxes that critics were trying to put him inâ combining portraiture, commercial photography, documentary, and fine art.
I think if Avedon listened to all the criticisms he received during his life (and just stopped photographing)â we wouldnât have this incredible body of work that he left behind.
So as a takeaway point for youâ follow your own heart. Follow your gut. Follow your own instincts. Donât give a flying fuck what others think about your workâ or how they will criticize your work.
As Andy Warhol once saidâ while they are busy judging your work (whether it is good or not) â just keep creating more work and creatively flourish.
Your photos will never be subjective, and appreciated 100% by your audience.
There is a lovely quote on criticism that my good friend Greg Marsden shared with me:
âIt is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.â – Theodore Roosevelt
3. On his work ethic

There are few photographers who were as obsessive, hard-working, and perfectionist as Avedon was.
a) Importance of working hard (everyday)
Avedon shares a bit of his personal background, and his creative routine:
âThereâs a biological factor if you can do it, or who has the ability to do it. A lot of people want to be photographers, and it wasnât a master plan [for me]. I just loved to get up every morning [I still do]. In the morning, Iâm ready to work at 9am. Itâs a gift that was given to me. Maybe I was a shrimp, maybe in the locker room I was a failure, maybe I donât know what it was. But I had a bedroom, and the kids were playing on the streets, and i would draw the shade– and it was a little split, and i could see out of them. I don’t know where it comes from, I don’t think anybody does. But at some moment, it comes together if youâre lucky.â
Avedon also shares the importance of working hard everyday at your creative work:
âIf you do work everyday at your life, you get better at it. The trick is: to keep it alive. To keep it crucial.â
b) On putting pressure on yourself
Avedon also harnesses some of the fear he has â to keep his wits sharp and to make great photos:
âThereâs nothing hard about photography. I get scared, and Iâm longing for the fear to come back. I feel the fear when i have the camera in hand. Iâm scared like when an athlete is scared, youâre going for the high jump. You can blow it. Thatâs what taking a photo is.â
c) The sacrifice he paid with his family
Unfortunately, Avedonâs workaholism did pay a price with his family:
âI think when you work as Iâve worked– theres something I didnât do something successfully, which is my family life. Marriage. I donât think you can do it all.â
However Avedon says on the other handâ he has no regrets:
âI think if you pay that price, thatâs not a terrible price. There is no guarantee any family life is going to work out.â
d) Disregarding compliments
One of the greatest strengths of Avedon was that he didnât care much for compliments. I think his comes from his tough training, when he worked at Harper’s Bazaar with Brodovich (a man with very high standards):
âBrodovich was the father. He was very much like my father. Very withdrawn and disciplined and very strong values. He gave no compliments, Which killed a lot of young photographersâ they couldnât take it. I didnât believe compliments. I never believed compliments even until this day. So I responded to the kind of toughness plus the aristocracy and standards.â
While working at Harperâs Bazaar, the 3 closest people he worked with were all perfectionists. He said the following:
âThe addiction of perfection of those three people â and that’s why those pictures hold.â
e) On never being satisfied
Even with one of Avedonâs most famous elephant photoâ he considers the photo a failure (for a small detail):
âI donât know why I didnât have the sash blowing out to the left to complete the line of the picture. The picture will always be a failure to me, because the sash isnât out there.â
f) On shooting until the end
It is incredibleâ Avedon shot and worked everyday until he died at 81 (while on assignment).
Avedon reflects on the work he creates:
âThe thing that has happened to me lately is the sense I didnât take the photos. That they have a life of their own. Itâs endlessly mysterious to me.â
When Avedon was still aliveâ he also shared how he wanted to keep working, and producing new work (even as an older man):
âIâve become my own widow. Iâm in charge of my archives, I create booksâ I create exhibitions. but it will be over. And when iâs over then Iâll read and rest, and begin to become a photographer againâ I hope. My god in the question of being an older man with passion is Matisse, because when one would have thought he had done everythingâ he got into bed and re-created color and did the most beautiful work of his life, and most modern work of his life. If i can be reborn for the few years that are left to meâ it would make me very happy. And if not, Iâll either really go with full force or ill stop.â
g) Donât feel you need to prove yourself to others
Another golden nugget of wisdom (applies not just to photography, but life): donât feel like you need to prove yourself to others. Avedon shares below:
âWhat I like about being older is that I donât feel I need to prove myself anymore. Like an onion peeling, I donât go to dinner parties [been there], I donât work for magazines anymore. Whatâs the unnecessary? Whatâs important? Doing the work
making the work better. Doing the job better than I did before, and the few close friends in the kitchen you get together with. We sit down and talk, really. There is no turning to the left and right– and asking people about random talk.â
h) On thinking of your own mortality

I think there is nothing better to keep you motivated (than the thought of death).
For example, in 1974, he fell dangerously ill to inflammation of heart, and kept working. The second attack was life threatening. At around the time (when he was 60) â he started his âIn the Americanâ west series (which lasted 5 years). He was motivated much by his older age, and I think it is that thought of death which really propelled him to create this incredible body of work.
Avedon shares:
âI think my best work as a body of work is âIn the American Westâ. I did the western photos when I was around 60, and I think that â being 60 is different from 30,40,50â you begin to get a sense of your own mortality. I think my aging, the sort of stepping into the last big chaptersâ was embedded in this body of work. As deeper connection to those people who were strangers. Because of my condition of that time.â
Of course, the work wasnât without controversy. Critics loved it or hated it. Avedon was charged for exploiting his subjects, and falsifying the west. Avedon shares:
âThe book was called âIn the American Westâ â which really set off an enormous, hostile response to the book. What was an east coast successful photographer doing photographing working class people in the west? Was this really the west, and what was he doing?â
Takeaway point:
I think âtalentâ is overrated in photography and the arts. Based on all the great creatives I have studiedâ it is their hard work ethic which ties them all together.
Avedon was never satisfied with his work. He wanted to always push it to the next level. He was incredibly self-centered in his work, because he believed in it. He disregarded what others thought of him and his photosâ he had this fire in his heart that kept him alive.
He photographed until he died at 81. Now that is a life of photography I would love to emulate.
Also as a big takeaway point: realize that you have nothing to prove with your photography. You donât need to impress anybody â but yourself.
Focus on constantly improving your work, and put in the hours. Disregard everything else.
4. On how he photographed

To hear about Richard Avedonâs approach and signature style is fascinating.
One of the things Avedon is most famous for is taking portraits on an 8×10 camera, with a totally white background, and black bordersâ with the human face as his main subject.
Paul Roth, who is the senior curator and director of photography and media arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C said the following about Avedon:
âIn 1969, the tools Avedon used were the same tools he had used before. He photographed with a big 8×10 view camera, which was already kind of anachronistic at that time. It’s the kind of camera we associated more with Nadar in the 19th century. He photographed people against a white backdrop so that there was no contextualizing, no environment for us to locate or place them. He had done that before, but in 1969, he made it into a fetish. He would show the black border, the edges of his negative. He contrasted the white background against the black edge of the film in a way that was very radical. It made the pictures very tough and aggressive. Furthermore, bodies would be sliced, feet cut off at the ankles, heads cut off at the crown. He didn’t use flattering, chiaroscuro lighting. And he was fascinated by age. He had this wonderful expression called avalanche. He would describe seeing age descending on a person like an avalanche, covering them over. So Avedon took great care to photograph the folds of skin, wrinkles, and moles, all with a very sharp lens. And that was also very radical. Traditionally portraiture idealizes its subjectâand gives some sense of their clothes and surroundings. Avedon dispensed with all of that. It’s hard to overemphasize how radical that kind of portraiture was at the time.â
a) Focus on subtraction (saying no)
I find it fascinating that Avedon used negation as a big part of his photography. Addition via subtraction. Avedon shares:
âI work out of a series of ânoâsâ. No to distracting elements in a photograph. No to exquisite light. No to certain subject matter, no to certain people (I canât express myself through). No to props. All these noâs force me into the yes. And I have no help. I have a white background, the person Iâm interested in, and the thing that happens between us.â
b) On choosing faces
Nobody has photographed the human face more (or as well) as Richard Avedon. How does Avedon find an interesting face to photograph? A past assistant shares a story when working with Avedon:
âThe very first weekend we worked together, we were walking through a stadium for the Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, and Dick said to me, âWhich face would you choose?â I thought to myself, âYouâre the famous photographer. You tell me,â but what he was doing was putting me on the spot right from the beginning to force me to look and to learn.â
The key: making a photograph that will last for many years:
âWhether he was considering a cowboy or a coal miner, Avedon would always ask, âIs that face going to hold the wall and be as riveting six years from now?â When you take a person out of context â out of the mine, out from beside the road with a vast expanse of Oklahoma prairie behind him â then you really have to have a face thatâs going to say something.â
c) Harnessing your own emotions
Avedon was also quite in-touch with his emotional side in his photography:
âTo be an artistâ to be a photographer, you need to nurture the thing that most people discard. You have to keep them alive in order to tap them. Itâs been important my entire life not to let go of anything which most people would throw in the ashcan. I need to be in touch with my fragility, the man in me, the woman in me. The child in me. The grandfather in me. all these things, they need to be kept alive.â
Avedon also harnesses much fear into his work:

âI think I do photograph what Iâm afraid of. Things I couldnât deal with the camera. My fatherâs death, madness, when I was youngâwomen. I didnât understand. It gave me a sort of control over the situation which was legitimate, because good work was being done. And by photographing what I was afraid of, or what I was interested inâ I laid the ghost. It got out of my system and onto the page.â
He also shares his thoughts on death:
JEFFREY BROWN: You wrote in the catalog essay that âPhotography is a sad art.â Why?
RICHARD AVEDON: Itâs something about a minute later, itâs gone, itâs dead, and the only thing that lives on the wall is the photograph. And do you realize that in this exhibition, almost everyone is dead? Theyâre all gone, and their work lives, and the photograph lives. They never get old in a photograph. So itâs sad in that way.
Avedon even photographed his father, who was losing his battle with cancer (on the brink of death). When asked why he made the series, Avedon said:
âIt gave me a sort of control over the situation. I got it out of my system and onto the page.”
Avedon was also able to touch into the darker emotions behind many of the famous faces he photographed:
âPeople â running from unhappiness, hiding in power â are locked within their reputations, ambitions, beliefs.â
d) On dancing with your subjects
Much of Avedonâs work has great energy and vitality to it. For his early fashion work, he would often dance with his models with his Rolleiflexâ and his subjects would respond by dancing as well. This lead to a body of work which had energy, vibrance, and edginess.
Avedon shares his thoughts on capturing movement:
âOne of the most powerful parts of movement is that it is a constant surprise. You donât know what the fabric is going to do, what the hair is going to do, you can control it to a certain degreeâ and there is a surprise. And you realize when I photograph movement, I have to anticipate that by the time it has happenedâ otherwise itâs too late to photograph it. So thereâs this terrific interchange between the moving figure and myself that is like dancing.â
Even when photographing his subjects, he would tell them to jump, and to âjump higher!â
e) On photographing the face
Avedon is most famous for photographing fascinating faces. This is what he describes his approach in photographing faces:
âDifferent animals have different kinds of eyes for accomplishing what their goals are. An eagle has a literal zoom lens in the eye so that from way above he can zoom down into the rodent he is going to attack. And in the way I think my eyes always went to what i was interested inâ the face.â
He elaborates on how he analyzes faces:
âI think Iâm sort of a readerâ I used to love handwriting analysis. But thatâs nothing compared to reading a face. I think if I had decided to go into the fortune telling business, I would have probably been very good. What happens to me in workâ I look for something in a face, and I look for contradiction, complexity. Something that are contradictory and yet connected.â
Takeaway point:
What I learned from Avedon is the importance of capturing soul, energy, and emotions from your subjects.
Being interested in shooting portraits of strangers in the streets, I always try to channel my âinner-Avedonâ â to try to quickly analyze a person, and try to create an image I have of them in my mindâ which I think shows a part of them which is vulnerable or emotional.
I think there is nothing more difficult than photographing the human face. There is so much expression, intricacies, and subtleties in the human face.
Ultimatelyâ I think Avedonâs most memorable images are the ones that are a bit unsettling, emotional, and controversial. Donât shy away from controversyâ just follow your own heart when photographing your subjects.
5. A message for photographers
In this excellent documentary on Richard Avedon (Darkness and Light) â he concludes with these words of wisdom to photographers:
âWe live in a world of images. Images have replaced language â and reading. The responsibility to your role in history in whatever is going to happen to human beingsâ you are the new writers. And we can no longer be sloppy about what we do with a camera. You have this weapon in your hands which is a camera, and it is going to teach the world, itâs going to record the world, it is going to explain to the world and to the children that are coming â what this world was like. It is an incredible responsibility.â
Conclusion
Avedon is a man who lived with conviction and dedicated his entire, soul, and being into his photography and his work. There are few photographers who have had the work ethic of Avedonâ and created such a diverse body of work.
Although Avedon is mostly known as an editorial, advertising, and portrait photographerâ I still think his âIn the American Westâ is one of the most personal and insightful portrait series done in America. And they were done mostly of strangers in the streets he met (very similar to shooting âstreet portraitsâ).
If you are interested in street portraitsâ devour the work of Avedon. Look at the way he captures the emotion and soul of his subjects. How he embraces ambiguity and complexity in the faces he captures. How he interacts with his subjects, and projects his own feelings onto his subjects.
And lastly, donât be afraid of controversy. Follow your own heart, and photograph by channeling your own emotions. Make your photos personalâ and never stop working.
Videos
Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light (one of my favorite documentaries)
Charlie Rose: Avedon Interview
Links
Books by Avedon
To see more work by Avedon, check out the Avedon Foundation.
Also check out the Richard Avedon iPad application â which is phenomenal and free.
1. Avedon at Work: In the American West
A fascinating look into how he photographed âIn the American West.â
2. In the American West: Avedon
The photography book (if you are into street photography) that you definitely have to get.
3. Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004
Over 200 photos of his best images. A solid volume to invest in.
4. Richard Avedon: Woman in the Mirror
An absolutely gorgeous volume of his iconic photos of women.
5. Avedon Fashion (1944-2000)
If you love fashion photography, the entire body of work from Avedon.
If you want more book recommendations (from other photographers), check out my list: 75+ Inspirational Street Photography Books You Gotta Own
Continue learning from the masters
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