I never wanted to be called an artist. I wanted to be called a photographer.
Interpretation
Avedon emphasizes the distinction between the broader term 'artist' and the specific title of 'photographer', highlighting his desire for authenticity in his work.
Richard Avedon's quote expresses his preference for the label of 'photographer' rather than the more general term 'artist'. This distinction reflects his deep commitment to the medium of photography as a unique form of expression, suggesting that he sees photography not simply as a tool but as a nuanced art form that conveys its own artistic vision.
In practice
In a speech about the value of different artistic disciplines, one might quote Avedon to emphasize the importance of specificity in art.
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.
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.
I think all art is about control, the encounter between control and uncontrollable.
When you want to touch the reader's heart, try to be colder. It gives their grief as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief.
Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.
Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.
If I wanted to do clothes or if I wanted to make a building or design a choreography, you are able to do that - they are all under a similar kind of design umbrella.
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.
People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a rhetorical device. When we talk about ourselves as a people and as a culture, we talk about black history, black culture, black music. That's the rhetorical position we occupy.
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