Diane Arbus was an American photographer who started out working with her husband, Allan Arbus. Diane Arbus was very perplexed about how to capture people being their true selves. She took a wide range of pictures from strippers, sideshow performers, and nudists, to transgender sex workers and people with dwarfism.

When creating these images, she allowed the subjects to show how they possess a strong sense of identity. Arbus looked up to Lisette Model who taught her to take pictures of more specific things because it would be more general. Arbus wrote, “In a way, this scrutiny has to do with not evading facts, not evading what it really looks like.” Her subjects were about to be themselves while she was taking pictures. They did not have to do a specific pose and they were able to feel comfortable to where they knew she was not going to judge them.

Arbus’s goal was to show how people were creating their own identities and by those who were trapped in a uniform that no longer provided security or comfort. However, Arbus’s whole gallery was not shown, the majority of her artwork was kept private until it was published in a monograph by her daughter Doon.

Diane Arbus. (2024, March 24). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Arbus. Accessed March 28 2024.

“Female Impersonator Holding Long Gloves, Hempstead, L.I.” The Met, 2000, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/651806. Accessed March 28 2024.