Photoshoppers Beware

We have a no-way-in-hell-you’re-gonna-win challenge for you, dear reader. Check out any fashion mag from the newsstand and try to tell us that the faux Photoshopped beauty on the cover has something over any portrait snapped by Richard Avedon. You won’t have a chance.

The late American shutterbug -- who began his prolific career photographing mega-hotties such as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar -- was the master of capturing a subject’s true élan through good ol’ analog black-and-white prints and solarised color creations. He’s also known for shooting some of the sweetest band art in history (accompanying portraits of the Beatles for The White Album, cover art for Sly and the Family Stone’s Fresh), famous creative types (Pablo Picasso, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Jimi Hendrix), and stirring imprints of blue-collar Americans in his controversial epic In the American West.

The Phoenix Art Museum, in conjunction with Tucson’s Center for Creative Photography, presents the “Richard Avedon: Photographer of Influence” retrospective. The show chronicles the photographer’s career from amazing beginning to kickass end.