The Masters

The New York Times: Camera Men.

"All three lives -- Cartier-Bresson's, Newton's, Avedon's -- followed unexpected trajectories, with significant detours, geographic and otherwise. Cartier-Bresson, after reinventing himself several times over, stopped taking pictures altogether in 1974 and devoted the remainder of his years to drawing, like a monk giving himself over to meditation. Newton, who changed his name once and his continent of residence several times, appeared to be a semifictional character, his flesh-and-blood existence indistinguishable from the ironies of his pictures. Avedon trafficked in confection and then in the absence of confection, the two apparently opposing halves finally resolving to make him the greatest portraitist of his time. In combination, the three demonstrated that the camera is less an extension of the eye than of the subconscious mind, with all of its riches and all of its snares. They showed that photographic truth is never literal, is often tangled up with artifice and always speaks to the emotions before addressing the intellect." - Luc Sante