Real people move, they bear with them the element of time. It is this fourth dimension of people that I try to capture in a photograph.
Interpretation
The essence of individuals is captured through the passage of time in photography.
Richard Avedon's quote emphasizes that true photography goes beyond mere images; it aims to encapsulate the dynamic nature of people as they exist in time. Avedon suggests that each photograph carries with it the temporal essence of its subjects, illustrating their life stories and experiences in a single moment captured on film.
In practice
In a photography class, I shared Avedonβs quote to inspire students about capturing the essence of their subjects.
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.
The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, and then we torture them. The more we love them, and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story. Sometimes we try to protect them from getting booboos that are too big. Donβt. This is your protagonist, not your kid.
How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.
The actor must use his imagination to be able to answer all questions (when, where, why, how). Make the make-believer existence more definite.
People probably have different philosophies about this, but I think that when you're first shaping the play and trying to find a character, the initial actors that develop it end up imprinting on it - you hear their voices; you hear their rhythms. You can't help but to begin to write toward them during the rehearsal process.
Overacting is a self-indulgence, while underacting comes either through a lack of talent or a lack of courage.
It occurred to me that every work of art is a synecdoche, there's no way around it. Every creative work that someone does can only represent an aspect of the whole of something. I can't think of an exception to that.
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