Quote

You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.

Diane Arbus

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Diane Arbus
Age: 48 †
Born: 1923
Born: March 14
Died: 1971
Died: July 26
Fashion Photographer
Photographer
New York City
New York
Diane Nemerov
Diane Nemerov Arbus
Diane née Nemerov
Diane nee Nemerov
Essentially
Notice
Appearance
Street
Streets
Reality
Someone
Flaw
Flaws

More quotes by Diane Arbus

Image
Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
Diane Arbus
Image
The condition of photographing is maybe the condition of being on the brink of conversion to anything.
Diane Arbus
Image
I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself.
Diane Arbus
Image
If I didn't have a camera, the things I do would be crazy.
Diane Arbus
Image
I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
Diane Arbus
Image
Nothing is ever the same as they said it was.
Diane Arbus
Image
The camera is cruel, so I try to be as good as I can to make things even.
Diane Arbus
Image
I mean, if you've ever spoken to someone with two heads, you know they know something you don't.
Diane Arbus
Image
I don't know what good composition is.... Sometimes for me composition has to do with a certain brightness or a certain coming to restness and other times it has to do with funny mistakes. There's a kind of rightness and wrongness and sometimes I like rightness and sometimes I like wrongness.
Diane Arbus
Image
These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.
Diane Arbus
Image
I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.
Diane Arbus
Image
A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.
Diane Arbus
Image
If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.
Diane Arbus
Image
It would be beautiful to photograph the winners of everything from Nobel to booby prize, clutching trophy, or money or certificate, solemn or smiling or tear stained or bloody, on the precarious pinnacle of the human landscape.
Diane Arbus
Image
One thing that struck me early is that you don’t put into a photograph what’s going to come out. Or, vice versa, what comes out is not what you put in.
Diane Arbus
Image
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
Diane Arbus
Image
The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.
Diane Arbus
Image
The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.
Diane Arbus
Image
One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.
Diane Arbus
Image
Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe.
Diane Arbus