The way someone who's being photographed presents himself to the camera, and the effect of the photographer's response on that presence, is what the making of a portrait is all about.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the interplay between the subject and the photographer in the creation of a portrait.
Richard Avedon's quote emphasizes the dynamic relationship between a photographer and their subject during a portrait session. It suggests that the way a person chooses to present themselves is influenced not only by their own self-perception but also by the photographer's reactions and approach, culminating in the essence of the portrait being a collaborative effort rather than a one-sided act.
In practice
A photography exhibition discussing the relationship between subjects and photographers.
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 challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement
The evening light was like honey in the trees When you left me and walked to the end of the street Where the sunset abruptly ended. The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself To the fragile forget-me-not flower. You climbed aboard. Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones, Dreams I had, including suicide, Puff out the hot-air balloon now. It is bursting, it is about to burst
Getting a book published made me feel a little bit sad... I felt driven by the need to write a book, rather than the need to write. I needed to figure out what was important to me as a writer.
So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America.
Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever.
All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.
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