1. By
Michelle Kwan
Matt Miles
Amy Horner
Karkiu Tang

2. Personal Life
 Born in New York
 Married to Allan Arbus
 Two daughters (Doon & Amy
Arbus)
 Divorced afterwards

3. Career Life
 Fashion Photography Business
 Studied Fine Art Photography
 Studied Photography with
Berenice Abbot & Lisette Model
 In 1960s, taught Photography

4. Death
 Committed suicide in 1971
 Age 48

5. “She came to me and said, „I can‟t
photograph,‟ And I said, „Why not?‟
And she said, „Because what I want to
photograph, I can‟t photograph.‟ ” She
told Diane to go home and figure out
what it was she really wanted to take
pictures of. “And the next session she
came to me and she said, „I want to
photograph what is evil.‟ And that was
it.” – Lisette Model, Viennese-born
photographer

6.  Fascinated by risk taking
 Embraced the New York City art world‟s life-
on-the-edge attitudes about money, social
status and sexual freedom
 Pursued same thrill in photography
 “I always thought of photography as a naughty
thing to do—that was one of my favourite
things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very
perverse”

7.  In the 1950s and early ‟60s, she was using a
35-millimeter camera and natural lighting
 Showed the influence of street photography
 Favoured blurred surfaces and grainy textures
 Didn‟t conform to the tidy look of mainstream
commercial photographs
 Around 1962 she switched to a 2 1/4 format
camera
 Created sharper images with brilliant detail
 She wanted “to see the difference between flesh
and material, the densities of different kinds of
things: air and water and shiny.”

9. Describe the focus of Arbus’
work in 3 words:
Taboo
Unconventional
Beauty

10. “I hear myself saying, „How terrific.‟ ... I
don‟t mean I wish I looked like that. I don‟t
mean I wish my children looked like that. I
don‟t mean in my private life I want to kiss
you. But I mean that‟s amazingly,
undeniably something.”

11. Critics of Diane Arbus
• Arbus receives massive praise for
her work after her death.
• However some critics found her
work to be disturbing, even
repellent.

12. Negative Attention
 Argues that Arbus‟s
work is based on
„distance, on privilege‟
 The intentions were
more cruel then
tender.
 Angered at the lack of
political engagement.
 Believed that the
subjects had no value.

13. Positive Attention
 Sandra Phillips believed
that
 “She was a great humanist
photographer who was at
the forefront of a new kind
of photographic art.”

14. Changing Ideologies
 Images that
represented sexually
ambiguous figures
and motherhood.
 Challenged
dominant social and
ideological
conventions of the
late 1950‟s and 60‟s

15. Final Thoughts – What’s your Opinion?
 If photography is
telling a story of a
person/ object.
 There isn‟t one picture
of Arbus‟s that doesn‟t
evoke an emotion
from its audience.
 She was a trailblazer.
 She did that she could
do, to exploit conflicts
in society artistically.

16. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 From:
 “Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph”
(1972)
 By Doon Arbus, Diane Arbus

17. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 1. Go places you have never been
 “Like a blind date”
 “Have absolutely no control on the
scene”

18. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 2. The camera is a license to enter the
lives of others
 “Camera is the license”
 “Show interest to your subject, pay respect”
 Explain you are a photographer

19. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 3. Realize you can never truly understand
the world from your subjects eyes
 “ the gap between intention and effect”
 “ Something is ironic in the world and it has to
do with the fact that what you intend never
comes out like you intended it”
 Different perspectives

20. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 4. Create specific photographs
 Be selective
 Highlight of the scene

21. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 5. Adore your subjects
 Be compassionate to the subjects
 Respect subjects
 The power of distortion the lens can
have

22. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 6. Gain inspiration from reading
 Creativity and insights often come from
outside sources
 Diversify sources

23. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 7. Utilize textures to add meaning to
your photographs
 “Grains: a kind of tapestry of all these
little dots and everything would be
translated into this medium of dots”
 Experiment freely

24. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 8. Take bad photos
 “Funny mistakes”
 “You haven‟t tried before”

25. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 9. Sometimes your best photos
aren‟t immediately apparent (to you)
 “ I‟ve gotten to like it better and better
and now I‟m secretly sort of nutty about
it.”
 First impression isn‟t everything

26. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 10. Don‟t arrange others, arrange
yourself
 “I work from awkwardness. By that I
mean I don‟t like to arrange things if I
stand in front of something, instead of
arranging it, I arrange myself”

27. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 11. Get over the fear of
photographing by getting to know
your subjects
 “I had to ask to photograph them.”

28. Lessons from Diane Arbus
 12. Your subjects are more
important than the pictures
 Connections with your subjects
 Your experience

29. Discussion
 Would you describe her
style as documentary
or portraiture?
 Do you think she
misrepresents people?
 Does the way she
represents people
contradicts her aims?

30. Bibliography
 http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/
2012/02/diane-arbuss-photography
 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-
culture/a-fresh-look-at-diane-arbus-
99861134/
 http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2
011/jul/26/diane-arbus-photography-
sideshow
 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/arbus-
writer-susan-sontag-with-her-son-david-
nyc-al00192/text-summary