Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was an American photographer who is famous for her unconventional portraits or both ordinary and extraordinary citizens (such as transvestites, giants, prostitutes and dwarfs). In the 60's Arbus worked as a photojournalist and her work was featured in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and Sunday Times magazines. Arbus experimented with the use of flashes in daylight, which allowed her to highlight and separate her subjects from the background. Her first public work was called "The Vertical Journey: Six Movements of a Moment Within the Heart of the City", which consisted of six portraits of New Yorkers. One of her most famous pieces of work is "Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park", which featured a scrawny boy holding a toy grenade in his left hand with a claw like gesture with a maniacal expression. The other, "Identical Twins" showed young twin sisters standing together in corduroy dresses, one smiling and the other frowning. Arbus' work has been criticized as being demeaning to her subjects, as it has a voyeuristic approach. However, admirers of her work were interviewed by the BBC and defended her work. Arbus then studied "conventional" people in an attempt to dispel this image.