Avedon's swan song

ruttrutt Registered Users Posts: 6,511 Major grins
edited October 28, 2004 in Technique
If you don't already own a copy of The New Yorker from Nov. 1, 2004, I think you should rush out and buy it. It has a 33 page portfolio of Avedon portraits titled Democracy 2004. For those of you who don't know Avedon's work (can there really be any?) he was one of the most famous and influential photographers of all time. He started off as a fashion photographer and grew to be an amazing portrat photographer. He had a show last year at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. He died a couple of weeks ago, presumably while on assignment working on this very project for The New Yorker.

This is really an amazing collection of photographs. There are both black and white and color (rare for Avedon in recent years) images. These are studio images, all shot against white backgrounds, with studio lighting, and in large format. Lighting, focus, resoultion, all the technical details are as good as you can imagine. The man had a lifetime to prefect his technique and it shows. His studio technique elimenates all distractoins from these images and brings the viewers attention completely onto the subject. These are very revealing pictures, to say the least.

I want to get one thing on the table right away before going any further. Avedon was a lifelong political liberal. There never has been any secrect about his political feelings. In the early 60s, he coauthored a book with James Baldwin, The Movement, about the civil right movement. He attended at least one antiwar march on Washington in the late 60s (I was there.) He was the first staff photographer for The New Yorker.

The portfolio clearly reflects Avedon's political position. There are many more pictures of Democrats than of Republicans. The picture of the "Billionaires for Bush" activists has signs that say "Leave No Billionaire Behind" and "2 Million Jobs Lost -- It's a Start". A picture of a same sex couple and their baby is flatering. The first picture in the artile shows a couple holding their baby and assault rifle at a gun show. There are two shots of young men in combat uniform with assault rifles. There is a disturbing picture of grotesquely wounded soldier (in color to make the point as clear as possible.)

On the other hand, this is an honest statement. Avedon rises above his own views to see his subjects clearly. Karl Rove looks wise and clear eyed, perhaps even kindly. Bill O'Reilly looks skeptical, handsome, and smart. James Careville looks like somebody you'd want to keep at a distance, peraphs a latent war criminal.

The format of the article fits my idea of near perfect presentation of wonderful photographs. There are both color and black and white pictures, and mostly I can understand the choice. The color images prove that Avedon was a master of color. Their precense here serves to set off the B&W shots and give them integrety. Mostly the shots are full page, but not always. Some pages are "four up" and these pages always face a full page shot, so it never gives the "yearbook" effect. The four up pages were clearly carefully composed to make the shots work together.

Avedon's work in The New Yorker has always included the negative borders. This serves two purposes, it provides a simple black frame which is important because he shot against a wite background. And it shows that there was no cropping. I don't know what happened in the dark room with these shots, but the presentation gives them a sense of complete naturalism.

Each shot has a caption. For example "Karl Rove, senior advisor to President George W. Bush, Washington, D.C" or "Members of the activist group ACT UP, during the Republican Convention: Minou Rjomand, Paul Davis,..." or "Sargent Joseph Washburn, Burke Army Medical Center, Midlothain, Texas. In April, he suffered third-degree burns over forty per cent of his body when a chemical plant exploded and his Humvee was engulfed in flames, during a mission in Baghdad". Captions like these, that convey important information are interspersed with ones that don't give away nearly as much, for example "Ruth J. Simmmons, president of Brown University. Providence, Rhode Island" and captions that are seemingly unnecessary, such as "Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, co-founder and chairman, The Carter Center. Atlanta, Georgia". And that's a good trick. Because he captions every picture, he can choose with each shot whether or not to make a point. Often he just gives the facts and they speak for themselves. But if he wants to sharpen a point verabally, there is a place for it.

Every one of these images wowed me. I could look at Jimmy Carter, Bill O'Rielly, Karl Rove, among others, for a good long time. Avedon got pretty deep into these people whether they wanted him to or not.
If not now, when?

Comments

  • damonffdamonff Registered Users Posts: 1,894 Major grins
    edited October 28, 2004
    Great info Rutt. I'll go out tomorrow and get a copy.
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