"A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he's 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. He's implicated in what's happening, and he has a certain real power over the result."
Richard Avedon.
Avedon's portraits are recognizable by their out-of-the-ordinary framing and the use of the white background. Even if he was re known for his portrait of celebrities, Avedon chose to do this serie about real-life characters with a lot of personality, uncommon subjects with particular faces. Unlike Diane Arbus' use of direct, unflattering flash, Avedon's lighting is very well controlled, revealing texture and details in the faces and the clothes.
Those portraits are not fashion shots, they do not promote beauty, but they reveal a deep aspect of the subject's personality, they offer a look upon human condition that echoes in our mind long after seeing the pictures.
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