Fashion is where I make my living. I'm not knocking it; it's a pleasure to make a living that way. Then there's the deeper pleasure of doing my portraits.
Interpretation
Fashion provides a livelihood, but the deeper joy lies in creating portraits.
In this quote, Richard Avedon expresses the dual nature of his career as both a fashion photographer and a portrait artist. While he acknowledges that fashion photography is how he earns a living and finds pleasure in it, he emphasizes that the true fulfillment comes from the art of creating portraits, which allows for a more profound connection and expression of human identity.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a photography workshop to discuss the balance between commercial and artistic work.
There's always been a separation between fashion and what I call my 'deeper' work. Fashion is where I make my living. I'm not knocking it. It's a pleasure to make a living that way. It's pleasure and then there's the deeper pleasure of doing my portraits. It's not important what I consider myself to be, but I consider myself to be a portrait photographer.
I am, and forever will be, devastated by the gift of Audrey Hepburn before my camera. I cannot lift her to greater heights. She is already there. I can only record. I cannot interpret her. There is no going further than who she is. She has achieved in herself her ultimate portrait.
I never wanted to be called an artist. I wanted to be called a photographer.
Photography has always reminded me of the second child.. trying to prove itself. The fact that it wasn't really considered an art.. that it was considered a craft.. has trapped almost every serious photographer.
My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.
When you pose for a photograph, it's behind a smile that isn't yours. You are angry and hungry and alive. What I value in you is that intensity. I want to make portraits as intense as people.
Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.
If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft.
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many different people who come in to host the show and you get thrown into so many situations and learn how to think on your feet, so filmmaking actually feels slow, in a good way.
Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.
Poetry is not easy. Or should I say, real poetry is not easy.
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