The Avedon Years, Part XLII

Paying for Portraits?

To the very best of my knowledge, no one ever paid the renowned photographer Richard Avedon (1923-2004) to take their portrait. He would never have accepted any arrangement in which the sitter was also the client. To have done so would have compromised his total control of the situation, which for him would have been intolerable.

During the time that I assisted him (1952-57 and 1959-65) all of the portraits that he did — and there were many — were either for his personal satisfaction or commissioned by magazines for editorial use. Many of these later found their way into leading museums and photographic books, where they delight and enlighten audiences today.

Avedon chose his subjects carefully; they did not choose him. He also began by studying all he could find about them, deciding how he would portray them, and then inviting them to appear before his lens. Very few turned down these invitations despite his growing reputation for often producing less-than-flattering images. To have been photographed by Avedon was to have "arrived." 

In some ways, Avedon was more a psychologist than a photographer, and that is exactly why it is still so difficult to duplicate his "style." No combination of cameras, lighting, lenses, or films does the trick. He was even able to get results using coin-operated "Photomat" booths or even snapshot cameras! His true genius was an innate ability to manipulate people with a presence that was at once friendly and yet intimidating. 

Ah, that ubiquitous white background. It was, of course, there to isolate the sitter from their environment and present them in stark reality. Earlier in his career he often portrayed subjects in the context of their lives, as do most other photographers, but slowly began using the simplicity of a neutral white background and letting their own true personalities be revealed — for better or for worse, with no distracting props or settings. He had gained experience at this early on as he spent the wartime years in the Merchant Marine taking "mug shots" of sailors for ID records.

Among his many photographic books, three that are strictly of portraits rather than mixed with fashion and reportage are: Richard Avedon Portraits (2002), In The American West (2005), and Portraits of Power (2008).

CHECK THEM OUT by clicking on the book titles in the boxes below, or on the Buy buttons to purchase:

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Comments

[William McEwen]

Earl, I've enjoyed your blogs and I'm looking forward to your book. I'll be the first person buying it on Amazon!

I wanted to mention that in a magazine in 1981 or so I read that Avedon will take individual portrait commissions. The fee was $1,000, and for that you got a sitting and one mounted 8x10 print.

Avedon's website up until his death contained a link for portrait commission inquiries. It was simply a link to Norma Stevens' email address.

I inquired. Stevens told me the fee for a portrait commission was in the mid five figures, and that since Avedon uses many different cameras, there is no guarantee he would use the 8x10. He assesses each sitter separately.

[Earl Steinbicker]

Avedon most certainly did not do portraits for $1,000 at any time. Norma is quite right about the figures.

During my time he used either an 8x10 Deardorff or a Rolleiflex for portraits, depending on which he felt was right at the time. He did not even have a 4x5 at that time. For commercial studio (not location) work he often used an 8x10 Sinar, and a Mamiyaflex for beauty shots because its longer lens minimized facial distortion. For personal work he used a 35mm Pentax.