Before I begin, I want to say that I’m in no way trying to say which of these two artists in a way to says who’s better. This is more of a more a comparison and contrast between two of the best fashion photographers to ever exist.

Starting with the master, Richard Avedon was major influence in the field of portraits and high-end fashion. For me, his work tends to play with the fundamentals of photography such as line, shape and pattern. With this, he uses these principles to create forms which forces you to examine every corner of a photograph. He uses these to the fullest extend which results in photographs that taps into our emotions; they can make you feel uncomfortable, curious, heavyhearted and question the anatomy of humans. The best application of these principles being used in the photograph of “Ronald Fischer, Beekeeper”. In terms of lighting, we can see a high key photograph, completely evenly lit, with relatively low contrast. In addition to that, we see him using pattern and rhythm in the form of bees. It makes you feel uncomfortable, but sparks your curiosity and you begin to question “how is this even possible?”. This is the style of Richard Avedon.

Now compared to his teacher, Jonathan Mannion has a similar style to Avedon in terms of using high and low-key lighting, but that’s where the similarities end. Jonathan tends to broaden his style of work by using colour fills and capturing his subjects in their natural background. You can see that Mannion has acquired this from most of Avedon’s work; which he then uses it to his advantage. In the portrait of JayZ, he utilises Avedon’s lit white background and most likely one more addition light to light the subject to get that very strong- define, low key photograph. I would love to try out both techniques high and low key lighting to see which one makes a photograph powerful.