Iterations

One of my favorite photo documentaries is Darkness & Light, which is a fantastic look into the mind and work of Richard Avedon. A lot of people know Avedon from his photographs in the American West – bold monochrome portraits set against stark white backgrounds or “that poster.” You know the one – it features a nude Nastassja Kinski lying on a concrete floor entangled with a massive Burmese python. Originally shot for Vogue, the poster went on to sell millions of copies.Avedon’s career spanned six decades and his work bridged the gap between art and commerce in a way that few others managed to do – either before or since – and yet still he felt dissatisfied with all that he had accomplished as a photographer.“I’ve never been able to put all I know into a photograph,” he said. “A photograph can be an adjective, a phrase. It can even be a sentence or a paragraph, but it can never be a chapter. So it’s been a lifetime of frustration in terms of expressing myself because of the limitations of the visual image