Photography!

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”


–Richard Avedon

Lets start our first lesson with the most popular form of art.   And what form is this? Photography! As you know now, one of my personal favorites.  Not only mine but also most people’s favorite.  Now a days everyone believes they are a photographer and I guess I am too guilty of such a thought. 

Photography is a form of art that compared to others is fairly recent.  Since the camera was not fully developed until the 1800’s the idea of photography came later. At first photographs were used to just take portraits and gradually over time developed into the art form we know today.  Which even today is still be reinvented and developing technologically very fast and us photographers try to keep up. 

 

My camera and Olympus OM-1 was developed in the early 1970’s.  It is a film camera that is manually operated meaning that all functions like shutter speed and exposure are operated by me, not automatically by my camera.  Like previously stated it is a film camera so I can photos in black and white or in color.  But I usually prefer black and white. 

Now how this will usually work is that I’ll give a little background on the form of art I am going to talk about historical and personal and then some information on the person or artist I think does an amazing job at that form of art.  So basically, I’m going to talk about my favorite person in that form of art.   J

So who is my favorite photographer?? A man by the name of Richard Avedon! First and foremost know for his know for his fashion editorial shoots and later for his minimalist photos incorporating many well know political and social leaders.  Richard had a very successful 60 year career taking photos of Bob Dylan, MalcolmX, and even Twiggy.  Working both on his own and for such magazines as Harpers Bizarre and Vogue, Avedon established himself in the photography world as one of the truly best capturing both moments in time and formal images. 

I discovered this amazing man when I was 13 not wanting to go to the science museum with the rest of my family to see the body exhibit I excused myself to the art museum in the area and stumbled upon and exhibit showcasing many of Avedon’s great works.  After spend over 3 hours in the exhibit I was in love.  His use of only black and white and the words he seemed to be saying with his images called to me and said the most amazing things. They made me want to learn more about the people in them like Malcolm X or who Twiggy was.  They also said that anything I imagined could be possible in a photograph because I could make them anything I wanted, and it didn't necessarily have to be the truth or natural.  Therefore inspiring me for the rest of my days. 

What's your favorite Richard Avedon photo? Or what is your favorite professional photo?