92 Quotes by Richard Avedon

Marilyn Monroe gave more to the still camera than any actress, any woman I’ve ever photographed; infinitely more patient, more demanding of herself and more comfortable in front of the camera than away from it.

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?

I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could work with my eyes alone.

I can see myself as a very old man in a terrific wheelchair. Only, I won’t be photographing the tree outside my window, the way Steichen did. I’ll be photographing other old people.

I’ve photographed just about everyone in the world. But what I hope to do is photograph people of accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the difference once again.

How many pictures have you torn up because you hate them? What ends up in your scrapbook? The pictures where you look like a good guy and a good family man, and the children look adorable – and they’re screaming the next minute. I’ve never seen a family album of screaming people.

I believe that you’ve got to love your work so much that it is all you want to do.

Camera lies all the time. It's all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you... the moment you've made a choice, you're lying about something larger. 'Lying' is an ugly word. I don't mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.

A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he's wearing or how he looks.