Richard Avedon

“I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.”

“A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he's being photographed.”

“My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.”

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

“If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.”

“I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.”

“There's always been a separation between fashion and what I call my 'deeper' work. Fashion is where I make my living.”

“Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art.”

“I've worked out of a series of no's. No to exquisite light, no to apparent compositions, no to the seduction of poses or narrative. And all these no's force me to the 'yes.' I have a white background. I have the person I'm interested in and the thing that happens between us.”