Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was an American photographer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal." This is the reason why Arbus was renowned as a "bully photographer" she would pick on people who are "abnormal" especially the disabled and "ugly"!

drag queen

As we can see in this image of a drag queen, Diane Arbus shot it with an attempt to make this person even uglier than usual by photographing them with no make-up, the hair bunched up in rollers and the cigarette in his left hand is also emphasis on this point. Diane also used direct and harsh flash to make the skin tones greasy and washed out!

Twins

Diane photographed these two twins as a posed shot on the streets because she must have thought that because they are twins, this meant that the are different or "abnormal" the two twins may look the same and dress the same, but they are not feeling the same. The twin on our left is pulling a frowned face whereas the one on the right is happy and smiling, this is what Diane used as the hidden message of the image that two peaople will never be the same, no matter how similar.

The image above is one of another drag queen in the streets of New York, Diane yet again picked on this "woman" for their differences and tried to emphasise the lack of attractiveness by using the harsh light to cast shadows in the skin which reveals wrinkles and this light makes the skin greasier! She also shot from a low and unflattering angle with a moderately wide lens to make the subjects face wider than it actually is.

It is this "bully" in Diane's photography which separates her from the crowd. Very few photographers would actually purposefully try to show the worst in people, it is usually the opposite as our jobs as photographers, we are supposed to make people look BETTER but Diane deviated from this style and chose her own which she is clearly good at.