Arlene Gottfried was a photographer from the 1960s-until her death in 2017. She kept her focus mainly in New York and aimed to capture the lives of New Yorkers when their masks were off and their humanity was out. In an interview with TIME Magazine in 2011, Arlene Gottfried stated that her works due to a “lifetime of wandering.” Gottfried captured her subjects a wide range of vulnerability, including happy or sometimes even in vulnerable positions. Gottfried was most well known for capturing people of minority in these vulnerable positions. She has many famous pieces, some of which include Couple, which was taken in the late 1970s and featured an interracial couple; and Amores, which was photographed in the 1980s and featured two Puerto Rican male lovers cuddled up. Eddie Sun’s Friend Ironing features a woman of Asian descent, and Gottfried photographed her while she was in the middle of getting ready as part of an agreement. This photograph, and many others, can be used as examples of Gottfried trying to capture the world for what it is and what it has to offer. Many of these photographs were ‘in the moment’ and she just told them to stay, much like in her photograph Eddie Sun’s Friend Ironing.