Quote

To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.

Richard Avedon

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Richard Avedon
Age: 81 †
Born: 1923
Born: May 15
Died: 2004
Died: October 1
Designer
Fashion Photographer
Photographer
New York City
New York
Nurture
Artist
Art
Things
People
Discard

More quotes by Richard Avedon

Image
People — running from unhappiness, hiding in power — are locked within their reputations, ambitions, beliefs.
Richard Avedon
Image
A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed
Richard Avedon
Image
I never wanted to be called an artist. I wanted to be called a photographer.
Richard Avedon
Image
I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the yes. I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.
Richard Avedon
Image
You can't get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. You can only get beyond the surface by working with the surface. All that you can do is manipulate that surface - gesture, costume, expression - radically and correctly.
Richard Avedon
Image
Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art.
Richard Avedon
Image
All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.
Richard Avedon
Image
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.
Richard Avedon
Image
I've photographed just about everyone in the world. But what I hope to do is photograph people of accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the difference once again.
Richard Avedon
Image
I am always stimulated by people. Almost never by ideas.
Richard Avedon
Image
My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues.
Richard Avedon
Image
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.
Richard Avedon
Image
Faces are the ledgers of our experience.
Richard Avedon
Image
i think charm is the ability to be truly interested in other people
Richard Avedon
Image
I see pictures of myself and I always knew that what I was feeling didn't look like that guy in the pictures.
Richard Avedon
Image
He sleeps fastest who sleeps alone.
Richard Avedon
Image
One man's fantasy is another man's job.
Richard Avedon
Image
Just advertising departments with legs and high heels.
Richard Avedon
Image
The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion.
Richard Avedon
Image
If I could do what I want with my eyes alone, I would be happy.
Richard Avedon