Diane Arbus
I first saw a Diane Arbus photograph in 1971 in a short article about a New York show of hers in Time Magazine. The photograph was titled 'A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y. 1970'. The square formatted image is lit by a circle of light from a single flash that darkens the corners and gives the illusion that one is peering through a peep hole on to something private and hidden. The picture reveals an enormous man crouched over as if constrained by the room itself peering down at two smaller people; a man and a woman. The giant is out of proportion with everything and everyone in the room capturing a surreal moment within a real photograph. The effect is unsettling and disturbing. Her image is so personal and unique a perspective that it cannot be duplicated. To look at a Diane Arbus photograph is to see something that can only be revealed by a Diane Arbus photograph. Like an image taken with film that records light outside the visible spectrum it reveals a world that is before us but invisible to us.