[Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles on the Set of "Psycho"]

Avery learned photography at Paramount Pictures in the 1930s as an assistant to still cameramen Bud Fraker and A. L. "Whitey" Schafer. After serving as a photographer and paratrooper in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, Avery worked at Columbia and MGM studios until returning in the 1950s to Paramount, where he made stills for Funny Face, To Catch a Thief, and The Front Page.
Although this shot from the set of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is stamped on the verso for release by both Paramount and the Black Star photo agency, it is hard to imagine what use it would have served, since it neither summarizes a scene from the movie for promotion nor captures a legible moment of "relaxation" between takes. Instead, this haunting image seems to probe deeper into the movie's subconscious: with the stage equipment behind them doubling as a kind of makeshift railroad crossing, Perkins, giving off-camera advice to his fellow actor Miles (who played Lila, the sister of victim Marion Crane, portrayed by Janet Leigh), looks uncannily like the killer Norman Bates confessing the secrets that Hitchcock gradually reveals.