The End of a Decade

It's been a month since my last post, and because we are now in a New Decade and it seems time is running so quickly, i think sometimes we need to stop and look back to what matters and what a lifetime has show us. For that and many other reasons, i would love to share with you my deep admiration for one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time: Richard Avedon.

It takes a lifetime to admire and describe the work of the great Richard Avedon. The photographs in this New Yorker born in 1923 and son of Jewish parents are an icon of our times. You could say that one of its major contributions to fashion photography was the incorporation of motion pictures, and the momentum with which he endowed his photographs, an almost cinematic frame. He was a pioneer in this sense because the photographers before him had never so clearly. But Richard Avedon did not remain stagnant in the world of fashion, if the other obvious reason is a mainstay of photography is due to his portraits, always made a close shot black and white, they all have a really transparency that invites you to know the hidden inner world and character, as a psychological portrait.
Richard Avedon has a large collection of portraits ranging from actors, dancers, musicians, writers and politicians to anonymous people. In fact one of their portfolios and become more known book is "In the American West" is a series of portraits on the deeper America. Richard decided to portray the characters who remain most hidden in anonymity and who live discreetly putting their jobs and living with their families. This trip raises some of his most famous photographs as we see with Ronald Fischer, this is a very powerful and spontaneous photography as Avedon decided to put an ad in the newspaper looking for a beekeeper being the first to be introduced.It is a collection of images worthy of observation and analysis. 

The journey through the American West was made in the very height of his career, the late 70s and early 80s. It began in the fashion world doing work for the magazine Harper's Bazaar and later became Chief of the same picture, succeeding the magazine collects some of his best work. While not entirely devoted to the Magazine, in 1965 he left  to begin in Vogue magazine. Perhaps his foray into the world of fashion meant a revelation because of how their images projected, it made the image of the models were more lively and light. Not only had a passion for pretty pictures but looked surprised, like when he begins to portray characters that did not impact and gives them dignity, a reflection of this are the photographs to China Machado, namely a three-quarter shoot of China with her body almost sideways and cigarette in hand as she lift her index finger slightly with a fantastic costume by Ben Zuckerman. Following this picture, China became a full time model but quickly turn away the work to become fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar. 

Avedon editorials are like stories, with an introduction, development and conclusion enter the narrative in them, everything is orchestrated.
Another innovation in photography are his margins in the images as a black edge which provide them with great naturalness and improvisation but nevertheless it was much studied. Before him, no other photographer had done it and shot images that used to cut large format not so by him.  Another example is his photographs of Andy Warhol's Factory with all its characters posing standing, the left half is naked while leaving the right half wearing dark clothing, another image for posterity. 

Avedon became the first photographer working for The New Yorker magazine, and in which until 1992 had only done illustrations.

 Some of the models and actresses that posed for Avedon like Verushka, Penelope Tree, Natassja Kinski or Lauren Hutton owe much appreciation and recognition to this master. But the truth is that real Avedon's muse was Audrey Hepburn, whose first contact was with the movie Funny Face, where a fashion photographer is portrayed in reference to Avedon and in which he gave some of his photographs as is the case of an Audrey Hepburn depicted only in profile. Avedon went on to say about Audrey "I am, and forever will be, devastated by the gift of Audrey Hepburn before my camera. I cannot lift her to greater heights. She is already there. I can only record. I cannot interpret her. There is no going further than who she is. She has achieved in herself her ultimate portrait." 

Richard Avedon died on October 1, 2004 because of a brain haemorrhage while on an assignment for The New Yorker leaving a legacy of 50-year career and many of the photographs most closely watched, admired and reproduced. The great fashion photographer died, but his images never die, persist over time and live in our memories, books, magazines, poses, models and of course in our retinas;  was, is and will one of those photographers that move, that reflects the emotions beyond mere posturing, there is a big universe known through its images.