Diane Arbus' work and the shortcomings of it.

I don’t know much about her work, but I just read a couple of articles on the criticism she received. And the things critics would focus on changed over time... I’d start my research there if I was do answer your professor’s question. Start from “open” concepts (gaze, entitlement, marginality, ethic, relevance of those 3 pictures in her body of work), use quotes from other writers. Arbus gave interviews and also wrote about her training and her intentions : see what the discrepancies between her intent and the viewer’s reception were.

From the little reading I just did, she seems to have been wrongly accused of shooting “freaks” with disdain, without trying to bond with them. You could have a look at Darcy Padilla’s Family Love or Nan Golding work (youtuber/photographer Jamie Winsord made a video about the “imperfection“ of her style) to see if there are some echoes/dissonances in those works.

I don’t know how you usually work, but as a film student I think that’s how I would approach it: first gather bits of knowledge that create multiple angles and then, go back and forth between the plastic/formal elements of the 3 pictures you chose and the more theoretical things you picked up.

Sound overwhelming, but you gotta build something around those pictures. Discussing only the formal elements and techniques would only take you so far.

/r/photography Thread