Richard Avedon was an American fashion and portrait photographer born in 1923. He began his career in 1944 working for a department store and was later promoted by the art director of Harper's Bazaar. By 1946, Avedon had set up his own studio providing photographs for Vogue and Life magazines. He showed models expressing emotion rather than posing expressionless in studios. One of his famous photographs from 1955 featured a model in an evening gown surrounded by elephants at a Paris studio.

1. Richard Avedon
Zo Wiley

2. Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was born on May 15th, 1923 and
passed away in October 1, 2004. He was an
American fashion and portrait photographer.
Richard Avedon’s photography career began in
1944 when he started working as an advertising
photographer for a department store. Alexey
Brodovitch, the art director for the fashion
magazine ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ promoted Avedon’s
career at Harper’s. at first his work appeared in
‘junior bazaar’ but a year later it was in ‘Bazaar’
itself.
By 1946 Richard Avedon had set up his own
studio and was providing photographs for
‘Vogue’ and ‘Life’.
Avedon showed models full of emotion,
laughing, smiling and sometimes in outdoors
settings, instead of having an emotionless model
in a studio.

4. I really like this black and white photograph, it was taken
by Richard Avedon in August 1955. Fashion is portrayed
through this image as it shows a model wearing and
representing a fashionable evening dress by ‘Dior’.
Within the photo there are 2 elephants shown clearly
and it is visible to see another 2 elephants on each side
of the photo, this makes it clear that there are at least 4
elephants on the scene with just 1 woman. The lines
within the photograph make it look graceful, the models
pointed foot and gentle arm gestures contrast with the
heavy footed elephants surrounding the model. Also the
chains around the elephants feet make it look less
elegant.
The models dress is pre black which contrasts with the white part in the middle which hangs
down to the floor, her outfit contrasts with the grey of the elephants and the rest of the
background which is also grey. The contrast makes the outfit stand out more as it is darker on a
lighter background. This is good because the aim is to promote the clothes as it is fashion
photography.

5. This black and white photography was taken in August, 1949
in a Paris studio by Richard Avedon. The model in this photo
is Dorian Leigh, she is doing this shot for fashion
photography. The face that she is pulling is not the usual
face that you would see a model pulling, it is more
humorous with her tongue sticking out. Also the model has
what appears to be rabbit ears on her head. She has a
pearl necklace and pearl earrings in and what looks like a
black blazer to represent fashion. The fact that the model is
putting eyeliner on and wearing jewellery also influences the
fact that she is representing fashion.
The background of the image is over exposed but you can just make out a balcony behind the
model and a building with windows. The contrast between the background and the model is a
big different which makes the model stand out more as she appears to have a darker
appearance due to the background being so light. This photograph is a portrait shot which
means that the aperture would have been set to wide, ad the shutter speed would have been
set to around 1/100th of a second. The woman that is sat at the front of the photograph is
completely in focus and the background is slightly blurred out to create an affect and to make
the woman seem as though she is more in focus, this also drags your attentions to her,

6. The medium that was used to create this photograph was
black and white photography. This portrait photograph was
taken of Marilyn Monroe in Richard Avedon’s studio in May
1957. It is a simple portrait photograph that represents fashion
and beauty in the plainest of forms. This photograph is seen to
be very influential as the model is a well known model named
Marilyn Monroe. For the era that this photo was taken, the
models hair appears very attractive and fashionable, linking in
with the theme of fashion photography.
The contract between her skin and her clothing is a great difference which makes her stand out
more over the plain grey background. The fact that she is not looking directly at the camera,
suggests that this is a natural pose, also the way her body is being presented shows that this is not
your usual fashion photograph, making it unique. The fact that this is a portrait photograph
suggests that the aperture was set to wide and the shutter speed would have been set to about
1/100th of a second. The lighting used in this photograph is quite soft, which portrays a soft and
subtle affect to the image.