Originally Posted by
aluncrockford
I have read most of the comments regarding Avedon and his white background portraits and feel just a tad depressed by the tone and direction of some of the rather unfortunate comments. I do not know what you do to earn a living but I suspect it is not photography . Producing any cohesive body of work is not easy, particularly when you have to work to a brief, and if using assistants and casting agents gets you a better final image, then not using them would be considered to be very unprofessional .
Regarding the working method of this shoot, I would start by saying that using 10x8 to shoot people is very very tricky but the reason for using it are not just the size of the print, what you are in looking for is the connection between the camera and the sitter, and having a large format camera pointed at you is a very different experience for both the sitter and photographer than being pointed at by an SLR. a good example of this attempt to connect sitter with viewer are the
Monomaniac Portraits of gericault,
gericault approached the sitter with a request to the sitter not to be the passive subject but to be the active viewer looking out and into the eyes of the viewer, he was quoted as saying "I am not looking at them,they are inspecting, viewing, and connecting with those who look upon them". it could well be argued that it was this approach that Avedon was attempting to achive, if this was his intention then it could be said that the viewers connection with the subject is what validates the work.
You may be of the opinion that the work produced by Avedon is not at one with your particular estetic outlook, but please give a little respect for fact that the work was created and in some circles it is deemed to have merit.
Finally regarding your disdain for the fact that he did not print his work most photographers I know use printers to produce their work , the reason is simple , pro printers are better than photographers at printing,why would you wast time printing your own when you can brief out the printing and get a better job.
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