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Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus Books

Photographer

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“Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.”

Freaks
Book:Diane Arbus: Monograph
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“The Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination and I think it's true. I would never choose a subject for what it means to me or what I think about it. You've just got to choose a subject - and what you feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold if you just plain choose a subject and do it enough.”

IfsThinkingFeelsMeanEnoughSubjectsTheoryPhotographerChineseBoredomFascination
Book:El bosque de los elegidos: escrito en homenaje a Diane Arbus
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“... I must begin at whatever pace is possible, to work on the book of my own that i vaguely keep assuming lies at the end of the rainbow. It is after all my rainbow and if I don't do it no one else will...Survival is the secret so you really can't afford to doubt yourself for long because you are all you've got. The only thing to do is to go the limit with it. Exceed.”

IfsLongBookEndsLyingMy OwnSecretDoubtLimitsSurvivalAssumingThings To DoPaceRainbowExceed
Author:Diane Arbus
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“If the fall of man consists in the separation of god and the devil the serpent must have appeared out of the middle of the apple when Eve bit like the original worm in it, splitting it in half and sundering everything which was once one into a pair of opposites, so the world is Noah's ark on the sea of eternity containing all the endless pairs of things, irreconcilable and inseparable, and heat will always long for cold and the back for the front and smiles for tears and mutt for jeff and no for yes with the most unutterable nostalgia there is.”

IfsMenWorldLongFallBitsHalfSeaMiddleFrontsTearsColdDevilOppositesEternityOriginalsNostalgiaSeparationEndlessHeatApplesPairsWormsInseparableSerpentContainingSplittingArkMuttsFall Of ManNoah's Ark
Book:Diane Arbus: revelations
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“If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.”

PeopleIfsWantKindMeanHardStoriesWould BeHouseAttentionCrazyPhotographyPaidCamerasPhotographerCuriousReasonablePlusLicenseTalk To MeGuardedMean People
Author:Diane Arbus
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“Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. It's just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities. Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.”

PeopleWorldWayNeedsShouldLooksHas BeensFactsGivenStreetsLike YouShould HaveExtraordinaryAppearanceOne WayFlawsIronicAnother WayShould Have Been
Author:Diane Arbus
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