Richard Avedon's Photography Career

Avidon's career was listed by susan sontag as "one of the models of professional photography in the last century" (the others were Bresson, edward steichen and Bill Brandt). Avidon started as a fashion photographer and made even greater achievements in the future.

Avidon is a real new york man. His father is a Russian Jew and owns a fashion shop on Fifth Avenue. In middle school, he and his high school classmate james baldwin compiled a literary tabloid. At that time, his ideal was to become a poet. Later, he served in the navy and was sent to take photos of other people's documents. After taking thousands of photos, he found his own career direction.

At the age of 2 1, Avidon started working for Harper's Bazaar. Under the leadership of legendary artistic director Broadwich, he worked as a full-time photographer in Harpers for more than 20 years. Until 1966, he went to new york Vogue and worked under Diana freeland.

Bazaar of Fashion is a famous fashion magazine published on the East Coast, which provides a tall skeleton for Avidon and enables him to grow into a full-fledged bird. It can be said that Avidon was in the right place at the right time. During the period of Broadwich, he never stuck to the rules. With his encouragement, Avidon kept practicing his new understanding of photography.

1955, Avidon shot a series of black and white pictures "Domma and the Elephant" for Dior's evening dress. The elephant with rough skin is in sharp contrast with the slim and fashionable female model, which has brought great impact on people's vision and established his position in fashion photography. 1957, Hollywood even made a movie "Funny Face" starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn based on Avidon's career.

Avidon's photography gradually formed a distinct personal characteristic: his subjects were posed and placed in the front of the picture with white or dark gray and light gray background. He never uses natural light and doesn't like shadows. When the flash is on, he tries to avoid leaving a shadow on the background board. He never tries to cover up the physical defects of the characters. Wrinkles, eye bags and scars stand out in the picture, but it is this unattractive real face that attracts the audience's interest more than perfection.

After Avidon became famous, he kept close contact with artists and intellectuals active in new york. From 65438 to 0959, he published a collection of works, Observation, by truman capote. James baldwin, a high school classmate who has become a famous black writer, wrote the text for 1964' s Nothing. In 1960s, Avidon was an active political photographer. He went to the south to film the movement of black people fighting for freedom and rights, filmed anti-war activities all over the United States, and personally filmed the Vietnam War in Vietnam.

After 1970s, Avidon went to humanities photography. He photographed his father with cancer and went to the west to photograph ordinary oilfield workers and truck drivers. These photos are more powerful than stars or events, and his photography career has reached a new height.

Fashion has never been Avidon's interest in photography. His interest lies in people, and he attaches great importance to the relationship between photographers and subjects. In his view, the important thing in taking pictures is his interest in the subjects, and there should be stories between them.

Some classic photos of andy warhol were taken by Avidon, one of which is a close-up of Warhol's upper body after his assassination. There is a foot-long scar in the center of the photo, which is shocking.

1999, Avidon published an album "1960s". The cover photo of this book is Avidon's portrait of John Lennon. Due to Andy Warhol's post-processing, it became very famous, strongly colored in yellow, purple and red, leaving only the outline of Lennon's head and iconic glasses.

In this book, you won't see the hustle and bustle of new york's literary and art circles in the 1960s. Artists, rock stars, astronauts, politicians, hippies and pacifists appear in an empty and simple background, quiet, clear and true, which makes people feel sorry for those lost years and people. His photos are always tinged with melancholy. You can see the "before and after" photos of Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa, and see the vicissitudes of their faces.

1992, Avidon, who was nearly 70 years old, became the chief photographer of The New Yorker. On June 65438+1 October1day, 2004, he died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage while taking photos for this newspaper in Texas.

"Portrait is not copied. When emotions or facts are transformed into photos, they are not facts, but opinions. " Richard Avedon, an American portrait photographer, took this as his aim, sublimated fashion photography into art, and used portrait photography to show the charm of celebrities and ordinary people, thus winning the reputation of "the most famous photographer in the world".

Avidon started his career as a fashion photographer in his early years. The models in the fashion photos of that year were all stiff, but Avidon injected emotion and movement into the photos, and photographed the moment when the models smiled outdoors, which set off a revolution in photography. Susie Park, a supermodel in the 1950s, once said, "He is a leader in this field because he knows that models are more than clothes hangers."

Portrait photography is Avidon's favorite. His best practice is to put the characters in front of a blank background and capture their unknown essence with a lens.

The feet of Nureyev, the king of ballet, show the essence of personal performance under his lens; Marilyn Monroe, the "sexy goddess", unexpectedly shows extremely sad and deep face in her works. Former President Eisenhower became a confused old man; Hammer, the scientist who invented the atomic bomb, looked puzzled.

Avidon, who once wrote a good poem, had to drop out of school because of the war. 1942, he joined the American merchant fleet. He took the camera given by his father and took pictures of the crew. He happened to be a photographer. "I must have taken100000 confused faces, and then I suddenly realized that I was a photographer."

Two years later, he took advertising photos in a department store and was quickly recognized. The following year, he joined Harper Fashion, a fashion magazine, and gradually became famous. Twenty years later, when he switched to Vogue magazine, his annual income had reached 250 thousand dollars.

Avidon was married twice, and both ended in divorce. Maybe photography is a lover he met by chance but was infatuated with all his life. He once said: "The accident that I became a photographer made my life full of possibilities."