I've been looking at Avedon's "In the American West" again, prompted by Laura Wilson's excellent book about her time traveling with the great man taking the pictures. Some wonderful anecdotes about how Avedon got his subjects to be at ease and how he worked fast to make sure the precious, magic moment didn't pass. There are some informative pictures of him and his two assistants setting up the shots with a huge large format camera in front of a piece of white paper Gaffa taped to whatever was convenient. Avedon is usually seen chatting with his subject inadvertently copying the physical posture of the person he is about snap. His approach was unfussy and geared towards getting the real person onto the neg; no flash, minimum equipment - we can probably all learn from him.
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