Weekly Response 9/6/2019

This week I decided to look at photographer Richard Avedon who was an American fashion and portrait photographer. I had seen some of Avedon’s work before but I did not know his name or even how extensive his influence on fashion photography was until I looked him up. His work has an extremely unique tone to it as most of his photos are in black and white and feature intense lighting with harsh shadows. This type of work is extremely interesting to me, especially seeing where fashion photography is today and where it was in the 40s and 50s. Instead of the flat tones and low contrast colors of fashion magazines post war we have high contrast, black and white images that give a sense of drama and seriousness that early fashion photography did not really have. I gravitate towards a more 40s and 50s style of photography with simple colors and low contrast and this is the opposite so I’m surprised at how intrigued and captured by this work I am. The intense focus on the face matched with the shadows really draws you into the photograph and keeps you there for a long time.

• 

• 

•