Richard Avedon

“I see pictures of myself and I always knew that what I was feeling didn't look like that guy in the pictures.”

“If each photograph steals a bit of the soul, isn't it possible that I give up pieces of mine every time I take a picture?”

“Faces are the ledgers of our experience.”

“Real people move, they bear with them the element of time. It is this fourth dimension of people that I try to capture in a photograph.”

“Click! In other words, I'm in a very controlling position, and I can bring... and I've already... if the camera's on you, your face is very concentrated. You're listening. You don't know what I'm going to say next, and now you're smiling. All these things are the things I work with.”

“There's always been a separation between fashion and what I call my deeper work.”

“I am always stimulated by people. Almost never by ideas.”

“Fashion is where I make my living. I'm not knocking it; it's a pleasure to make a living that way. Then there's the deeper pleasure of doing my portraits.”