Richard Avedon Essay

On May 15, 1923, Richard Avedon was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Anna Avedon owned a family chain of dress manufacturers and his father, Jacob Israel Avedon started his own dress business called Avedon’s Fifth Avenue. Avedon was inspired by his parent’s businesses and his mother supported his interests in fashion and art. At age 12, Avedon joined the Young Man’s Hebrew Association Camera Club and armed with his family’s Kodak Box Brownie, he began fostering his interest in photography. Avedon’s family and fashion businesses would begin to shape his career as a fashion and portrait photographer. In his early years, Avedon attended the DeWitt Clinton High School, worked on the school literary magazine with his friend James Baldwin, won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award, was named the “Poet Laureate of New York City High Schools” in his senior year, and then went onto study poetry and philosophy at Columbia University. After a year however, he dropped out of college to serve as a merchant marine during WWII where his job was to take photo IDs of the crew using his Rolleiflex camera. After serving two years as a merchant marine, he went on to study photography under Alexey Brodovitch at his Design
Each portrait taken by Avedon was later enhanced with psychedelic effects and later used as posters. Although a little different than his usual portrait style, the portfolio is certainly interesting to look at with the different colorizations of each member. I like the portraits as separate posters, but not so much as a full set. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison all have some pretty intense effects on them that change the entire color scheme of their portraits, but Ringo Starr’s portrait doesn’t seem as enhanced. All the portraits are good, but the fact that Ringo’s portrait isn’t as enhanced and edited as the others makes the entire set seem a little less