Richard Avedon - American West fans

[tim atherton]

Digital Journalist has a nice piece on Avedon photographing In the American West, by his assistant Laura Wilson

video clips, photos and text (she's just published a book along these lines)

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0406/av_intro.html

[David Carson]

I bought Laura's book chronicling Avedon's technique for "In the American West," but one thing she does not cover (unless I accidentally missed it) is the focal length lenses he used. Does anyone know? I can't find it on the web, and yes, I know it is a reletively insignificant part of Avedon's magic.

[adrian tyler]

i've a long standing discussion with a friend as to if the "american west" subjects got paid to get there pictures taken, this is not mentioned in the book either.

[MattO]

I've never been much of an Avedon fan, and judging by the photos at the web site, not likely to be a Laura Wilson fan either.

[Bill_1856]

Some of them were paid.

[CXC]

I'm not crazy about American West, finding most of the stuff demeaning and/or intrusive. But I bought the book to learn a little about Avedon's technique. Not really worth it to me, but there were a couple of interesting tidbits.

He extends the center post of his tripod (massive Majestic) with his 8x10 Deardorff.

For standing subjects he often uses a point of view so high that he (or an assistant) stands on an orange crate to see the ground glass.

He routinely shoots over one hundred shots of a subject to get one to print. With one assistant on the front of the camera and one on the back.

He routinely requires dozens of darkroom image adjustments -- so much for the apparent realism.

[Frank Petronio]

How do you think Avedon's intrusiveness and end results compare with the pre-WW2 German photographer August Sander (?) who photographed Germans from all walks of life against simple backgrounds? Were his subjects exploited as well?

[Bill_1856]

Wonder how much the Museum paid for him to do the project? That's a hell of a lot of work, 3-5 assistants and over 1000 subjects posed and photographed. I notice the book is out of print.

[JohnnyV]

My friend worked for Avedon during part of the "American West" project and processed his 8x10 negs. Has very interesting stories...but mum is the word!

Here's his email he sent me regarding the "American West":

"Don't know what lens avedon used on the deardorff. That was the location camera. In the studio he had a sinar. Funny, I don't remember what film he used or anything technical. It was probably tri-x in d-76. I kind of blacked out being in the darkroom and processing and proofing 300 sheets of 8x10 film at a time. My most vivid memory was the sx70 polaroids that would come back with the film for cataloging purposes. The drifters and oil workers just looked like hicks. The b&w 8x10's were art."

[Brian Ellis]

If anyone is interested, Photo Eye sells or used to sell a lengthy video titled "Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light" that includes interviews with some of the subjects from the book as well as Avedon talking about the project and showing him at work on it. It's a very interesting video for anyone interested in Avedon's life.

[CXC]

I got the book from Amazon, which still has it in stock, as of this point in time.

[Frank Petronio]

I saw the video years ago and I'd GUESS it was a big Symmar type of lens, like a 360.