Master of Photography – Diane Arbus (documentary, 1972)

• This half hour video starts off with her daughter, Doon Arbus speaking about her mother’s photography. She describes her mother’s approach to prohibiting. There’s a few excerpts of other people speaking about Arbus’s craft. It sounds like the narrator is Doon but I’m not sure if it is or Diane. Arbus photographed mainly freaks. She believed it wasn’t so much about composition but the subject matter. Which is very intriguing to me because I’ve been taught the opposite. Doon also mentions how it seemed to her that her mother was secretive. She clarifies that the secret isn’t the technique but her experiences during her process of working. Arbus worked from awkwardness which she meant she would have to arrange herself. She didn’t like staging pictures which most portrait photographer’s do.
• This short video based on Diane Arbus was very interesting to me. She has always been an enigma to me. And watching this short documentary didn’t really enlighten me but make me wonder more. I find myself all kinds of questions about her approach. Even though it doesn’t answer many questions still the inquisitive feeling I get ignites something in me to go out and photograph.
• I really loved the narrative from Diane Arbus’s point of view. It was very effective to have her word’s narrating her own documentary even though she isn’t with us. Diane Arbus commit suicide in 1971.