Researching

Richard Avedon has a very unique style of working. His portraits are very interesting and seem to tell stories and spark ideas very quickly. Avedon (1923-2004) was an American photographer born in New York City. Avedon did not conform with the standard technique of taking fashion portraits with motionless models but in fact changed the concept and photographed the women smiling and full of emotion and often in action also. In addition to fashion Avedon also branched out and photographed patients of mental hospitals, protesters of the Vietnam war and also the fall of the Berlin Wall. Avedon photographed many famous people and liked to get an emotional response when taking the photo so often got into awkward discussions or asked psychological questions.


This image is very interesting, it is of a man named Ronald Fischer taken in 1981. He was a bee keeper and caught Avedons eye so he photographed him. The image is very intimate as the man is bearing all. As well as this it is noticeable that the bee's could in fact be stinging him but the emotion on his face does not tell us whats happening.


The images below are from a collection of images by Avedon, where he went out to capture the people that had 'hard uncelebrated jobs who are often ignored or overlooked'. The guy below is Roberto Lopez an oil field worker and next to him is Charlene van tighem a psychological therapist. The two images are very striking and I think they both stand alone or together really well. The fact that they are in black and white enhances features such as the eyes and the figure of the woman.













This image is one of the most interesting of the whole collection. This man is Richard Garber a Drifter from Utah. On a website I found a commentary from Avedons assistant Laura Wilson. She explains how Avedon and herself met this man in a cafe where he was in a very sorry state, crying and talking to himself. They heard of his plight, of his car being impounded and his mother being taken into a mental intuition. Then followed the photograph in front of the simple white background.


The style of the images is plain yet effective to the viewer. They clearly show the plight of these people yet are still very stylish with the professional way in which the photo's are taken on white background with probably some sort of studio set up or extra lighting.