Project 1 - Diane Arbus

 1 - Creating a Pinterest board

I started my research on Diane Arbus by creating a Pinterest board of her work. This includes her different styles of photography and her experimentations. Whilst some appealed to me and some did not, I tried to get a healthy mix of both what did and didn't appeal to me.

↓ Click here to view my Pinterest Board. ↓

                   

2. Secondary Research

During and after the process creating a Pinterest board of the work of Diane Arbus, I didn't really feel an appreciation for her work. In fact, I found many of her images were quite difficult to look at; they are not aesthetically pleasing, but in fact quite the opposite. 

Because I felt I didn't understand her work, I decided to try and do some secondary research on her work. After a while browsing, my search led me to a 30 minute "Masters of Photography" documentary which watched and took notes on.

Masters of Photography - Diane Arbus (Documentary, 1972)

Source: Vimeo - Baboon Nation (Masters of photography - Diane Arbus (documentary, 1972) on Vimeo)

After watching this short documentary, one particular quote stood out to me and helped me understand why I did not have a clear perception of her work. "I'm not so great actually. Sometimes, when I'm winding it, it'll get stuck or something will go wrong and I just start clicking everything and suddenly, very often, it's alright again." This told me that Diane Arbus was definitely not the most professional person in the sense of how a camera is operated but instead, the picture being taken. 

I did not understand her work because I was trying to look at it from a technical perspective, and the technique in how the subject is being portrayed. However, that is not what Diane Arbuses' work is about; her work is solely about the subject matter of her photograph. Once I realised this, I was able to properly understand what Diane Arbuses' photography is about. 

Unlike traditional photographers, Diane did not seek to portray the beauty within her subject, in fact often the opposite; photographing the outcasts of society such as freaks, homosexuals, nudists and addicts. Her ambition was to make people look upon things that they would usually turn their heads away from, and that is what makes her photography brilliant and interesting. She is showing people things that they have never truly looked at before. In addition, her photographs often show these people as functioning members of society, something that, especially for freaks, was not seen as possible, so her photography has a meaning and something to read into, as opposed to say a photo of a lake which of course is pretty and is appealing to the senses but is boring and has no heart or meaning.

3. Technical macro-analysis

Whilst I did state that Diane Arbus seems to have a somewhat limited understanding of how the camera itself is operated, and so the technical aspects are unimportant, I have noticed one consistent theme within all of her photos. 

Whether intentional or accidental, her photos are almost always slightly underexposed or rather heavily contrasted. This is a trait commonly seen within classic monochrome horror films and was done most famously by Alfred Hitchcock in the films 'Murder!' and 'Psycho.' 

Whilst working as a photographer for look magazine, Stanley Kubrick crossed paths with Diane Arbus. Whilst not confirmed by any party involved, the work of Diane Arbus was quite clearly an inspiration to some particularly famous shots of 'The Shining' in 1980.

On the left - Diane Arbus

On the right - 'The Shining'

On the left - Diane Arbus

On the right - 'The Shining'

4. Photo Analysis

Finally having understood the meaning of Diane Arbuses' work, I decided to finish off this part of my research with some of my own analysis of her photos: 

Summary

A conclusion I have come to after analysing her work myself is that I personally would definitely class Diane Arbuses' style of photography as documentation photography. The technicalities of her photography are more or less irrelevant, what truly matters is the subject being documented, which within her work is definitely irregular to say the least.