Though most of them recognised some semblance of themselves, one or two felt they had been set up. 'He must have had a picture in his mind…' (Dorothy Zellner, civil rights activist). What is quickly apparent is their realisation of how far he had preconceived the way they would look: 'He knew what he wanted… He came in with a concept …' (John Kerry, US senator, Massachusetts), 'He obviously knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it…' (Jerry Brown, former governor of California).

For the most part this involved the subject being asked to stand against a white (or in some cases grey) backdrop, while the photographer, having prepared the plate in his 8'x10' camera, stood next to it, enjoying the freedom it gave him to talk to his subjects before pressing the shutter, encouraging them to relax and, as he admitted, sometimes gesturing, or taking a stance which they consciously or unconsciously imitated, thereby producing the picture he wanted.įrank H Goodyear, associate curator of photography at the Smithsonian Institution, as part of his essay in the book, asked some of Avedon's subjects for their reactions to the experience of being photographed and to the results. Portraits of Power, the title of a new book published three years after Avedon's death to celebrate election year in America, presumably refers both to the power his subjects wielded and to the power Avedon's style of photography conferred upon them. His subjects were frequently figures in public life, and being photographed by him served to reinforce their celebrity. M any of the photographic portraits that Richard Avedon took in the course of his long and celebrated career are bound up with the idea of fame.

Richard avedon portraits of power