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.
Interpretation
Photography is often undervalued as an art form, leading photographers to seek validation for their craft.
In this quote, Richard Avedon reflects on the struggle of photography to be recognized as a true art form rather than merely a craft. He compares photography to a second child, emphasizing how it seeks validation and recognition in a world that has often marginalized its artistic value, thus affecting the perception and ambitions of serious photographers who feel constrained by this stigma.
In practice
This quote can be used in a photography workshop to emphasize the importance of seeking artistic validation.
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.
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.
As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.
Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.
The arts are valuable because they increase our sense of what it means to be human, not because of any specific skill or ability they confer.
Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.
This profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock is not a drop scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of reality.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
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