Richard Avedon
Photographer
1923-05-15
Quotes by Richard Avedon
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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.
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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.
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If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn't it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?
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Camera lies all the time. It's all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you... the moment you've made a choice, you're lying about something larger. 'Lying' is an ugly word. I don't mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.
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I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.
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People - running from unhappiness, hiding in power - are locked within their reputations, ambitions, beliefs.
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My parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read.
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I can see myself as a very old man in a terrific wheelchair. Only, I won't be photographing the tree outside my window, the way Steichen did. I'll be photographing other old people.
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