I had not heard the news of his sudden illness or passing. Big Sigh As a student I looked at his work in awe and total respect for his creative genius. I read the article you linked, and when I got down to the last paragraph I read the quote from Avedon and paste his comment here: "If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up," he said in 1970. "I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible."