Diane Arbus
“Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.”
Diane Arbus was an American Photographer who photographed many different types of people. She often used to photograph Identical Twins, Children, Mothers, Elderly People and people with disabilities. The settings in her work were familiar places to the people being photographed such as in her own homes, workplaces or public environments such as the parks or streets. She is most famous for her documentary-style photography as she goes around and takes photographs of people who society considers "Social Deviates". She wanted to capture the unique aspects and show the world who these people are and prove that just because they are different they should not be labelled as 'outcasts', but instead be labelled as normal, regular people.
Diane Arbus was born on the 14th of March 1923 and died on July 26th 1923 at age 48, she was married to Marvin Israel and had 2 children called Doon and Amy. Before photographing her subjects she would first befriend them as to not objectify them as "Just things for her to photograph". Many articles stated that she was "fascinated" by those who were creating their own identities and were outside the social norm. Her first camera was a Graflex which was gifted to her by her husband after they got married and soon after she began to attend classes and learnt off Berenice Abbot. She became fascinated with the photographers Audust Sander, Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Alexey Brodovitch and Lisette Model as they helped her to find what she wanted to accomplish in her photography career. After the war in 1946 she and her husband decided to make a business called "Diane & Allan Arbus", a photography business where she actually only came up with the concepts but she quickly became dissatisfied with what she added to the business due to her thinking her husband was being too demanding and "demeaning". She stated that she hated the fashion world after her work was released in Vogue Magazine's "Glamour, Seventeen"even though over 200 pages were designated to them and their work.
In 1956 she studied with Lisette Model and this encouraged her to begin to focus more on her own work so she ended up quitting the business her and her husband made. She stated that she is very grateful for Lisette and what she taught her and that she finally understands "The more specific you are, the more general it'll be".
I love the irregularity of her work and how it's all in black and white so that the colours do not distract you from what is truly important in the image which in itself is the people she photographs. My favourite image out of the 3 I have selected is the one of the twins, though they are completely identical they have different expressions. Twins often get mistook for one and other so it may be hard for them to get some sort of individuality but by them portraying different emotions they are different.
Photo 2 is called "Child with toy hand grenade" which was taken in Central Park, New York City. The boy in this image is called Colin Wood and he was taken photographs of multiple times until this one was taken, he was getting frustrated at this point which is why he is pulling that facial expression. He is playing with a grenade which is a sign of war and due to this taken in the time of the Vietnam war the photographer stated that they thought that there was something "troubling" about him "playing solider".
Photo 3 was taken during the halloween season. She wanted to create something that was 'mundane' and give regularity to something that was 'irregular'. So, she decided to get a group of children and make them wear odd/creepy masks and pose as they normally would to give them some 'humanity'.
Above are many images that she took through out her life and when they are all placed together like this you can really see the diversity of the people she took photo's of. I plan to do the same thing in some of my photo's and take pictures of a variety of different people who I find interesting.
Out of all of these photo's my favourite one is the one with the woman in a wheel-chair and her grandchild. I feel like it shows 2 different stages of life side-by-side so you can really see the difference.
Here I tried to replicate one of the images that she produced, i tried to do it in the same sort of environment in the corner of a white wall. I replicated the cigarette with a piece of paper and a black marker pen. Though the image is slightly over-exposed you can still see the main parts of the image.
