Diane Arbus
FameRank: 6

"Diane Arbus" was an American photographer and writer noted for photographs of "deviant and marginal people (Dwarfism/dwarfs, Gigantism/giants, transgender people, Naturism/nudists, circus performers) or of people whose normality seems ugly or Surrealism/surreal". Arbus believed a camera could be "a little bit cold, a little bit harsh", but that its scrutiny revealed the truth—the difference between what people wanted others to see, and what they really did see: the flaws.

A friend said that Arbus said she was "afraid ... that she would be known simply as the photographer of freaks"; ironically, that phrase has been repeatedly used to describe her.

In 1972, a year after she took her own life, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale. Millions viewed traveling exhibitions of her work in 1972–1979. Between 2003 and 2006, Arbus and her work were the subjects of another major traveling exhibition, Diane Arbus Revelations. In 2006, the motion picture Fur (film)/Fur, starring Nicole Kidman as Arbus, presented a fictional version of her life story.

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I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.

The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.

Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.

My favorite thing is to go where I've never been.

I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.

Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.

What moves me about...what's called technique...is that it comes from some mysterious deep place. I mean it can have something to do with the paper and the developer and all that stuff, but it comes mostly from some very deep choices somebody has made that take a long time and keep haunting them.