Richard Avedon, Toni Frissell and the Mystery of Fashion Photography
From Hemet Newton to Irving Pen we have had many great fashion photographers. This being an industry lead mostly by men has now become one of the most interesting and diverse jobs to have. Travelling from one country to another, styling, designing and shooting photos that will go down in history, the dream job, right? Well, things weren’t exactly as perfect as made out to be, especially for women around the 1920s-1960s. Jobs like these were not an option for women, they were meant to stay at home and learn how to become good housewife’s, they didn’t have the kind of freedom that we have these days.
Richard Avedon was an American fashion portrait photographer, he worked for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, specialising in capturing movement in still photos. A lot of his work is focused around emotion and feeling, trying to connect the audience to the emotion you see when looking at a photo, he created the departure from motionless fashion photography. His photographs are characterised by a strong black-and-white contrast that creates an effect of sophistication and elegance. In his portraits of celebrities, he produces a sense of drama by often using black or white backgrounds paired with a frontal, confrontational poses, this in turn draws the viewer in.
From celebrities to Elephant’s, you could defiantly say Richard found inspiration in many ways, an imagination that could explore every aspect of one shoot, creating an emotion and feeling that carries you through the photo. One of his most famous photos was the shoot he did with Dior for their evening dress, presenting Dovima an American model with elephants. Shot under an enormous skylight, this photo is a play on contrast. The pale skin and large ribbon of Dovima dress stands out against the elephant’s dark grey complexion. Dovima looks so perfect and unblemished compared to the wrinkled texture of the elephants. He used this photo as a play on age against youth. You will also notice the elephants have chains around their feet, this represent the idea that when you are young, you have freedom but as you age you start to lose that freedom. Although this aspect of the photo may not have gone down so well if released in this day and age, the meaning behind it is truly remarkable and wonderfully imaginative.
Avedon’s 1957 portrait of Marilyn Monroe was another image that received great credit. The photo reveals a rarely seen more sensitive side of the Hollywood legend. He placed her Infront of a drab background that frames rather than distracts. Her shimmering dress alludes to her onstage personality, but her expression is motionless and cold, she seems to not even have noticed the camera. For someone who loved to pose Monroe seems not to have been doing so for this portrait. Avedon explained that day to be interesting and eye-opening, for hours she danced, sang and flirted, then there was the inevitable drop. When the night was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everyone gone. Avedon captured that picture in those moments, when she was most venerable and alone. The aspect of this picture that is so compelling is the idea of being perfect, the need to always be ‘on’ or InControl, to be more or less depending on the way you look at it. Marilyn was the ‘its girl’, she was something that others weren’t, she held her own and had a different kind of energy to the rest. However, that put her on a pedestal, one that only represents perfection, the kind of perfection that has never and will never exist. Avedon took that and changed it, he looked through the cracks on what fame really was or more importantly what being a woman really represented.
Although Richard Avedon was a great photographer, honest and open to the emotion and realness of oneself, he was a part of yet another industry that excluded women, at least he was decent enough to see through the eyes of women with his use of photography . It was refreshing when female fashion photographers started to emerge, capturing a different angle, from a different point of view.
Toni Frissell was one of the first female fashion photographers to leave her mark on this always progressing industry. Her photography captured fashion, World War II photographs, children and women from all walks of life. One of her most iconic photos was the floating women, a woman lies floating in a lake, she wears a white, flowy dress surrounded by deep water. She is the main focus of this picture; she is what your eye gets drawn to. Although the background does not distract, it is also not forgotten. This photo plays on contrast, the women look light and free whereas the lake looks dark and dangerous. There could be so many meanings behind this photo, from the way women where treated in the 1950s to the way humans in general can feel, frissell created a lot of photos based on mothers, this could be a reflection of what being a mother feels like, those hard moments, the ones that may feel like your drowning or the ones that make you feel like your floating.
The truth is there is so many ways you can look at Toni Frissell work, if you can feel it when you look at it, then there really isn’t a wrong way to view it. The most special part of her work is that the truth is the only thing you can see. There are no ways around it, you see the raw and vulnerable image, with meanings, ones that we might not always want to see. “there are faces that I found memorable. If they are not all kings, it is because in this imperfect world and these hazardous times, the camera’s eye, like the eye of a child, often sees true” – Tonie Friessel.
