Portraiture in Photography

Richard Avedon - Self Portrait (1964)

In 'The Photograph', Grahame Clarke says that Richard Avedon has purposely tried to be vague in creating his image entitled 'Self Portrait 1964'. Even the name of the image doesn't really give away what the image is of, apart from that it is of himself, and even that isn't clear. At first it is hard to tell how the image is made, or what it is showing - whether it be a mirror, distortion of the lens or a merging of negatives. This ambiguity is what Grahame Clarke is explaining in the process of analysing this image.
When initially looking at this image I thought it was created by holding a mirror up to his face, or by photomanipulation techniques such as merging negatives. However when realising Avedon was holding a mask up to his face, my perception of the image changed. This made the image seem more of a comment on portraiture as a whole; by holding a mask up to his face and portraying himself to be someone else, Avedon questions and challenges the nature of self portraiture. 
After seeing Richard Avedon's image, I also saw a recent film poster for 'The Ides of March' which reminded me a lot of the same image and has obviously been inspired by it.