Quote

I am always stimulated by people. Almost never by ideas.

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
Almost
Ideas
Always
Never
People
Stimulated
Photographer

More quotes by 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
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
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
i think charm is the ability to be truly interested in other people
Richard Avedon
Image
I can see myself as a very old man in a terrific wheelchair. Only, I won't be photographing the tree outside my window, the way Steichen did. I'll be photographing other old people.
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
A portrait isn't a fact but an opinion - an occasion rather than a truth.
Richard Avedon
Image
Start with a style and you are in chains, start with an idea and you are free.
Richard Avedon
Image
I always prefer to work in the studio. It isolates people from their environment
Richard Avedon
Image
Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art.
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
One man's fantasy is another man's job.
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
If I could do what I want with my eyes alone, I would be happy.
Richard Avedon
Image
The pictures have a reality for me that the people don't. It is through the photographs that I know them.
Richard Avedon
Image
People — running from unhappiness, hiding in power — are locked within their reputations, ambitions, beliefs.
Richard Avedon
Image
And if a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up. I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible.
Richard Avedon
Image
To be an artist, you have to nurture the things that most people discard.
Richard Avedon
Image
All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.
Richard Avedon