Quote

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

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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
Things
Firsts
Excitement
Freaks
First
Shame
Photographed
Feel
Quite
Mixture
Feels
Friends
Mixtures
Mean
Stills
Awe
Thing
Used
Terrific
Made
Still
Adore
Kind
Best
Freak

More quotes by Diane Arbus

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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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These are characters in a fairy tale for grown-ups. Wouldn't it be lovely? Yes.
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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.
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If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.
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We stand on a precipice, then before a chasm, and as we wait it becomes higher, wider, deeper, but I am crazy enough to think it doesn't matter which way we leap because when we leap we will have learned to fly. Is that blasphemy or faith?
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I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them.
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The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.
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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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The condition of photographing is maybe the condition of being on the brink of conversion to anything.
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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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Photography was a license to go wherever I wanted and to do what I wanted to do.
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One thing I would never photograph is a dog lying in the mud.
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A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.
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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.
Diane Arbus
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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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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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The camera is a kind of license.
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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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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.
Diane Arbus