Richard Avedon

Kayla Vahling

Richard Avedon

2-15-11

Richard Avedon was a New York born fashion and portrait photographer.  His photographic career included work for the Merchant Marines, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, The New Yorker and Life Magazine, to name a few.  As a fashion photographer he incorporated a new style of imagery, which showed the true emotions of the models and put them into action, rather than still, lifeless poses.  In addition to his work in the fashion industry Avedon photographed social issues such as the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, Vietnam War protestors, patients at mental hospitals, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

He also began extensive portraiture work largely of famous actors, musicians and political figures, some of which became his most widely known and noted images.  His portraits have a very distinct simplicity to them, featuring a plain (usually white) background and straightforward views of the subject.  Another distinct feature of much of Avedon’s work is the sheer size of his images.  Often shot with a large format 8x10 camera, his prints were usually very large, sometimes more than three feet in height. 

His photography has become very widely published and the famous faces in his portrait work have been numerous.  Avedon’s work has been exhibited all over the world, and has won many awards, including the International Center for Photography Master of Photography Award, the Prix Nadar, and the Royal Photographic Society 150^th Anniversary Medal in 2003.