This document provides instructions for a warm up photography assignment to take portraits in the style of Richard Avedon. Students are asked to take two photos: 1) an individual portrait of one person and 2) a group portrait of two or more people. Both photos should emulate Avedon's style which features simple black and white portraits against plain backdrops with a focus on the subjects' faces and an absence of emotions. Background information is provided on Avedon's illustrious career in fashion and portrait photography and his signature style of dramatic lighting and minimal backgrounds.

1. Warm Up: Portrait Photography
2 Photos
1.Individual Photo
(1 person)
2. Group Photo
(2 or more)

2. Take photos in style of
Richard Avedon
• 1923-2004
• Started out as
fashion photographer
• Worked for NY
magazines such as
Vogue, Harper’s
Bazaar, The New
Yorker

3. Strong black-and-
white contrast
creates an effect
of sophistication.

4. Truman Capote, 1974
Marian Anderson, contralto,
New York City, June 30, 1955
The portraits are often well lit
and in front of white backdrops,
with no props or extraneous
details to distract from their
person.

5. Ezra Pound, Poet, 1958
FOCUS is
on the
face,
gaze,
dress,
and
gesture.
SIMPLICITY!

6. Samuel Beckett
He began to
take the type
of reality
photographs
that most
photographers
[especially
fashion
photographers
] of that time
Anti-fashion
Movement.

7. Wallis, Duchess of Windsor;
Edward, Duke of Windsor (King
Edward VIII), 1957
Dwight David Eisenhower,
President of the United
States, 1964
When printed, the images
regularly contain the dark
outline of the film in
which the image was
framed.

8. Marilyn Monroe, actress , New York City, May 6, 1957
Created a
sense of
drama by
often using
a stark,
white
background
and eliciting
a frontal,
confrontatio
DRAMA!

9. George Bush, Director, CIA,
Langley, Virginia, March 2, 1976
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense,
Washington D.C., May 7, 1976

10. Andy Warhol, artist ,
New York City, August 20, 1969

11. Edward Albee, Playwright
Michael Moore, Political Satirist

12. “In the American West,” 1979-1984
• Portraits of miners, oil
field workers in their
soiled work clothes,
unemployed drifters,
teenagers

13. Sandra Bennett, twelve year old
Rocky Ford, Colorado, 1980 Emma Lee Wellington, housewife
North Las Vegas, Nevada, 1980
In front of his
camera,
emotions are NOT
obvious.

14. Ruby Mercer, publicist,
Frontier Days, Cheyenne,
Wyoming, 1982
Blue Cloud Wright,
slaughterhouse worker,
Omaha, Nebraska, 1979
Preferring to avoid the "pretty" and bring out
the stark underlying "reality" of the subject.

15. Roberto Lopez, oil field
worker, Lyons, Texas,
September 28, 1980
Boyd Fortin, Thirteen Year Old
Rattlesnake Skinner,
Sweetwater, TX, 1979

16. Ronald Fischer, beekeeper ,
Davis, California, May 9, 1981
Jan Patricio Lobato, carney
Rocky Ford, Colorado, 1980

17. Group Photos

19. Richard
Avedon’s
Senior Lennard Nerona’s
Ap Art Student

20. YOUR WARM UP:
Classic Portraits in the style of
Richard Avedon.
-Simple backgrounds
-Focus on lack of emotions…capture the
rawness of the person.
-Black and White
Two Photos:
1.Individual Photo of 1 person
2.Group Photo of 2 or more people.
HOW TO TURN IN 2 Photos:
1.Add photos to your website under
warm ups.