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 AvedonI see pictures of myself and I always knew that what I was feeling didn't look like that guy in the pictures.
Richard AvedonAnd 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 AvedonMy parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read.
Richard Avedon