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The camera is cruel, so I try to be as good as I can to make things even.

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
Cruel
Camera
Photographer
Cameras
Even
Trying
Make
Good

More quotes by Diane Arbus

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The more specific you are, the more general it'll be.
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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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...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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If you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic.
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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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One thing I would never photograph is a dog lying in the mud.
Diane Arbus
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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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You see someone on the street, and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.
Diane Arbus
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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.
Diane Arbus
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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.
Diane Arbus
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I never have taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse.
Diane Arbus
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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.
Diane Arbus
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The condition of photographing is maybe the condition of being on the brink of conversion to anything.
Diane Arbus
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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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If I didn't have a camera, the things I do would be crazy.
Diane Arbus
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The camera is a kind of license.
Diane Arbus
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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
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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.
Diane Arbus
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Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.
Diane Arbus