Inspiration

Who has inspired me the most throughout my Photography life?
One of the people would have to be Richard Avedon.

One of the most famous portrait photographers, Avedon's work has inspired me so much during my time as a photographer. Even though many of his images are simple in terms of composition, the way that he communicates with his models can really be seen in all of him images. The fact that his images are all black and white is really beautiful and the high contrast brings out the lovely shadows and tones in the model's faces. He uses harsh light sources in his images, but I think this works really well because it creates a high contrast, which in turn brings out the darker areas of the pictures.


Avedon was interested in how the camera captures the personality and soul of his subjects - this is exactly what I love about Photography. Avedon would at times evoke reactions from his portrait subjects by guiding them into uncomfortable areas of discussion or asking them personal questions. Through these means he would produce images revealing aspects of his subject's character and personality that were not typically seen by others. This is a really interesting aspect to Avedon's work because a lot of photographers just expect the models to come up with an interesting facial expression, but with Avedon's images, he almost creates the facial expression of his subjects (and they are normally really interesting expressions, for example, in the above image of Monroe). 


Avedon was actually criticized for giving his subjects TOO MUCH attention, however, personally, if I were a model, I would prefer more attention than to be ignored by the photographer. I believe it is incredibly important to have a good relationship between the photographer and the subject because I think that with a friendship, the photographer will be able to portray the true character of the model, rather than almost guess.