I recently went down to Grand Rapids to see the Avedon exhibit. After realizing that he was the OBVIOUS inspiration to my then favorite portrait photographer Ross Haflin, I had to look at a few of his pieces. I looked at a couple—I was intrigued. I couldn’t see all of them, though, as I wanted to feel so in awe of the photos that I had to get up close…
Fast forward from the computer screen to the exhibit. I was doing exactly what I thought I had done, especially on the two pieces of Vietnam victims—Napalm Victim #3 and #4. You can see every wrinkle on their foreheads, every blackhead on their noses, every line in their hoping eyes…
This, my friends, is photography.
It’s a good thing the first pictures I saw were covered because my breath left a small moisture spot after standing too close for so long with my mouth open. I quickly learned my lesson and stayed back.
At least a couple inches.
I couldn’t help it. Even photographs of names I didn’t recognize that didn’t strike raw emotions caught my every attention.
There was fashion, there was journalism, there were portraits. Even though many can say his pieces were all fairly similar (I have only found one series and one other photo of his in color and most are very simple backgrounds with a black gelatin print edge), his different genres of exploration stroke different chords.
His journalism made me want to cry, his portraits made me think, and his fashion portraits—such as the one displayed above—made me wonder WHY more fashion photographers don’t use motion in such a simple form.
All in all, I am extremely glad that I didn’t look up his work too much online. However, I would still have had the same reaction I had most of the time; wonderment and enjoyment.
