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If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.

Diane Arbus

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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
Reality
Enough
Really
Way
Scrutinize
Closely
Fantastic
Photographer
Becomes

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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.
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One thing I would never photograph is a dog lying in the mud.
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There's a kind of power thing about the camera. I mean everyone knows you've got some edge. You're carrying some magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a way.
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Photography was a license to go wherever I wanted and to do what I wanted to do.
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One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.
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Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognize.
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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.
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The camera is a kind of license.
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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.
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These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.
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The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way.
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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.
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Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe.
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I think the most beautiful inventions are the ones you don't think of.
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...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.
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I think it does, a little, hurt to be photographed.
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The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
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I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
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There are an awful lot of people in the world and it's going to be terribly hard to photograph all of them... It was my teacher Lisette Model who finally made it clear to me that the more specific you are, the more general it will be.
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The condition of photographing is maybe the condition of being on the brink of conversion to anything.
Diane Arbus