Who do I like? Well, I'm admittedly not a people photographer myself very often. But in terms of an apples to apples comparison of those who could get into people's face, wanted or not, I'd rate the obnoxious images of Avedon far far below our best known local example, Dorothea Lange, who could put empathy, context, and composition all in a frame, and who was expected to get the job done on about 1% of Avedon's budget. If it took 17,000 negatives to complete that one 130 image pretentious project, that's gotta be the worst track record I've ever heard of. That less than a 1% success rate.
And I'll repeat, Avedon never was in the West, at least psychologically, because he didn't seem to see a damn thing. He was just bringing marketable NYC stereotypes of the West with him. Should have stayed in NYC and kept taking pictures of corny models wearing suits made from recycled tin cans.
I'm not numb to how some of his strategies were quite creative in their day, but now it's like Starbucks, one on every corner, and I'm sick of it. Two people I go out of my way to avoid seeing over and over and over again are Avedon and Warhol. I doubt either one could even spell the word, "nuanced". Like a pie in your face every time.
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