Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
...I would never choose a subject for what it means to me. I choose a subject and then what I feel about it, what it means, begins to unfold.
Diane Arbus
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Would
Subject
Subjects
Choose
Means
Feel
Feels
Unfold
Mean
Begins
Never
Photographer
More quotes by Diane Arbus
I'm very little drawn to photographing people that are known or even subjects that are known. They fascinate me when I've barely heard of them.
Diane Arbus
Photography was a license to go wherever I wanted and to do what I wanted to do.
Diane Arbus
I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.
Diane Arbus
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
Take pictures of what you fear.
Diane Arbus
It's important to take bad pictures. It's the bad ones that have to do with what you've never done before. They can make you recognize something you hadn't seen in a way that will make you recognize it when you see it again.
Diane Arbus
I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.
Diane Arbus
There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle.
Diane Arbus
The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.
Diane Arbus
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
Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.
Diane Arbus
A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.
Diane Arbus
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
Diane Arbus
I mean, if you've ever spoken to someone with two heads, you know they know something you don't.
Diane Arbus
Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
Diane Arbus
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
The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.
Diane Arbus
If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.
Diane Arbus
Lately I've been struck with how I really love what you can't see in a photograph. An actual physical darkness. And it's very thrilling for me to see darkness again.
Diane Arbus
One thing I would never photograph is a dog lying in the mud.
Diane Arbus