A Response Essay for Critique Class: Photographer Diane Arbus

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A Response Essay for Critique Class: Photographer Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus’s photograph of a middle-aged woman on the street focuses on the average person, and the subject matter is to document everyday life that people tend to overlook. The other famous photographers mainly focused on celebrities and prominent personalities. This is like photographing those neglected even as they are more common than people realize. In the portrait style photograph, there are no hints on what the woman is thinking and viewers are left to speculate about this. Rather than present a single dominant view, the photographer leaves this open focusing on woman’s face. This is important as Arbus shows a close up representation of her connection to the subject, who is an average person on the streets.
In the black and white photograph the woman eyes are closed, and there are other blurred images of people walking as well as a car and building. In the 1956 photograph, it is the close up photo of the woman that is the clearest view, and Arbus’s focus on street photography allowed her to represent whatever she encountered. This is more spontaneous when compared to nature photography where the photographer may already know what to expect. Documentaries of street photography are as diverse as the people in the urban settings. The aim of the photographer was to know about people with snapshots representing them regardless of whether they were imperfect.
In photographing a woman on the street, Arbus sought to document and reinterpret ordinary people as she captured the reality of life. The documentarian focused on getting closer to the person appearing in the photograph. This is the case in the photograph of the woman on the street as attention is drawn to her and not the blurred surroundings. It as if the photographer collaborated with the woman when taking her picture. The image is then like a voice for the woman and the ambiguity in her emotion indicates that Diane sought to document human connection.
In the casual snapshot, street photography plays an important life in documenting the lives of ordinary people. This contrasts with images of fashion, lifestyles and advertising as they are more sensational. Street photography is not staged art, and even with the decline of this type of photography Arbus and her fellow photographers showed people as they saw them. Even as the photography captures the moment, it is likely that the woman did not set out being photographed. How...