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?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the emotional and spiritual connection a photographer has with their subjects, suggesting that taking photographs can involve a personal sacrifice.
In this quote, Richard Avedon explores the profound relationship between the artist and their art, proposing that each photograph captured may extract a part of the photographer's essence or emotional state. Avedon suggests that through the act of photography, a photographer not only captures a moment but also invests their own soul and feelings into the image, raising questions about the nature of art and personal identity.
In practice
In a discussion about the emotional impact of photography during a photography exhibition.
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.
There comes a point at which you stop writing and think all the more
There was a beauty in the trash of the alleys which I had never noticed before; my vision seemed sharpened, rather than impaired. As I walked along it seemed to me that the flattened beer cans and papers and weeds and junk mail had been arranged by the wind into patterns; these patterns, when I scrutinized them, lay distributed so as to comprise a visual language.
I've gradually realised that what I do best is universes. And I shouldn't be afraid of that.
Be a good craftsman; it won't stop you from being a genius.
The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.
The poets who have written the best poems about war seem to be the poets whose countries have experienced an invasion or vicious dictatorships.
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