I’m passionate about portraiture.
I always have been. I’m fascinated by that moment when someone decides to stand in front of a camera and reveal themselves. That’s why I love the story I’m going to tell you today.
In 1979, Richard Avedon was the most famous fashion photographer in the world. He had photographed Marilyn Monroe, worked for Vogue, his images defined the aesthetics of an era.
That year, Mitchell A. Wilder, director of the Amon Carter Museum, proposed something unusual: photograph the American West. Not the landscapes, but the people. Coal miners, slaughterhouse workers, ranchers, drifters.
Avedon accepted. But with one non-negotiable condition.
He took his photo studio to the desert.
For five years, from 1979 to 1984, Avedon and his team traveled through 17 states, 189 towns. They set up a roll of white paper in the middle of Wyoming, at a rodeo in Montana, next to a slaughterhouse in Nebraska.
The same method he used with celebrities in his Manhattan studio—white backdrop, total control—now in dusty Western towns. With one difference: natural light. The Deardorff 8×10 camera was heavy enough to move in a van. There was no room for lighting equipment.
752 sessions. 17,000 sheets of film exposed.
Why maintain that system?
Because Avedon had discovered something fundamental: total control doesn’t depend on the space, it depends on the method.
His white backdrop wasn’t decoration. It was an elimination system. It removed the noise, the distractions, the context that could condition the gaze. What remained was pure: the person, their posture, their gaze, their vulnerability.
But there’s something deeper.
Avedon meticulously prepared each session. He talked to his subjects, asked difficult questions, created a space of trust before the click.
Laura Wilson, his assistant throughout the project, documented how Avedon never hid behind the camera. He stood beside it, talked, connected.
The white backdrop was the tool. Human connection was the goal.
A coal miner covered in soot, a drifter on Interstate 80, a physical therapist in Montana. All photographed with the same dignity as Hollywood stars. Because for Avedon there was no difference: each person deserved the same rigor, the same respect, the same obsessive attention to detail.
When the series was exhibited in 1985, it was controversial. Critics were divided: some considered it magnificently moving, others accused it of being cold and lacking empathy. A local newspaper wrote: “This is not our American West.” It showed coal miners covered in soot, exhausted workers, faces without smiles.
It wasn’t the romantic West of movies and Marlboro ads.
Avedon knew it:
“This is a fictional West. I don’t think the West in these portraits is any more real than John Wayne’s West.”
His response was clear: he didn’t aim for objectivity. He aimed for control. Control to create the space where a person could show themselves without masks.
And that control began long before the shot.
Three years crafting a method
openbcn studios has never been just a photo studio in Barcelona. For 3 years I’ve worked to be able to name something that makes it different.
Now it has a name: MAÎTRISE.
When I started with this photo studio, my biggest challenge wasn’t the space or the equipment. It was getting people to understand me. Not to compare me only by square meters or rates. To see what a different photography studio really offered.
But I came from portraiture. And from portraiture I learned that what people value in photography production is how they feel when you work with them. It’s not about looking good, it’s about being able to show an attitude. That’s what control gives you. Anticipation. Taking care of the small details so you can then improvise during production and get that extra something.
Like Avedon taking his white backdrop to the desert.
MAÎTRISE is our white backdrop. It’s the system we’ve built so that when you arrive at our photo studio in the center of Barcelona, everything—absolutely everything—is designed so you have total control, without noise.
It’s not just the beautiful photography studio. It’s not the expensive gear. It’s the obsession with eliminating friction. With anticipating. With creating that space where you can concentrate on the only thing that matters: your vision.
That’s MAÎTRISE.
The reviews I receive about OpenBCN Studios don’t talk about the cyclorama or the room. They talk about how they felt working in the studio, simply.
Avedon understood that his job wasn’t to take beautiful photos. It was to create the conditions for truth to appear.
Not all photography production projects need this level of control. Each producer has their priorities. And that’s fine.
I chose to specialize in one: total control without friction in a photo studio in the center of Barcelona. In creating that space where you don’t have to think about anything except your vision.
If that’s what you’re looking for in a photography studio, then maybe openbcn studios is for you.
Marc
who also writes l’Atelier d’Idées by openbcn studios
P.S. The complete “In the American West” series has 103 photographs. None were cropped, none were retouched. Avedon’s system worked because every element was planned from the beginning. Just like MAÎTRISE.
