Conclusion so far...

I feel my second shoot went really well and I have definitely made a good development. However I still don't feel like I'm quite there yet.

Here is Diane Arbus' photograph of 'Christmas tree in living room', and as you can see my photographs aren't at the same stage yet. Looking at this photograph now I think the main focus is that the christmas tree is too big for the small living room, which is giving the uncomfortable feel. This is something I will consider in my next shoot.

Shoot Two

Here is my second attempt to relating to Diane Arbus' photograph of 'christmas tree in living room'.

This first photograph is of a small house decoration in my living room. I took this photograph as I thought it was strange to see a house in a house. The more I think about it the more I feel its strange. I also changed this photograph in to black and white to make it relate even more to Diane Arbus' photographs.

This second photograph is of my dinning room table with my mums boot on it. I photographed this as it's very strange and out of place to find a boot on a dinning room table where people eat. I also photographed this shot at a funny angle to exaggerate the uncomfortableness and to keep the viewer on edge.

This finally photograph is my favourite as its of my empty hall way which is again about the loneliness. But then there is a christmas ball bull on the middle of the floor as my cat had been playing with it and left it there. This is very strange as you wouldn't normally find a ball bull in the middle of the hallway floor, this makes me feel uncomfortable and on edge.

Conclusion so far

I feel like I have made a good start to contributing to Diane Arbus' work, however I still have a long way to go.
Looking at my photographs now I feel like I'm focusing too much on just the loneliness side to Arbus' work, instead of the other aspects such as how the view feels when looking at the images. When I myself look at Arbus' work I feel very uncomfortable and on edge. This is something I would like to bring in to my own work. So I shall do another shoot with that in mind.

My first shoot

Here are a few images of my first attempt relating to Diane Arbus' work...

This is my first image of ‘Christmas tree in living room’, I photographed the stair case as its an empty space, people only ever use it when their passing through. I photographed it at an angle to give an uncomfortable sense to it. I used just a bulb light close to the camera to exaggerate the darkness in the background, giving a yellowy colour at the front and a bluey colour at the back, this also to me feels uncomfortable as its not natural lighting. 

 This is another image I have interoperated of Diane Arbus’ work of ‘Christmas tree in the living room’. This is a photograph of my cat looking out of the window, almost as if she is looking for hope out of the lonely house. I darkened my image to exaggerate the loneliness of the house. Again I have used the same square frame, as Diane Arbus has used in her photographs. Also this image is almost in black and white , with just a hint of colour making it even more similar to Diane's work.

This image is my interpretation of Diane Arbus’ image, it is of a fire place with a few Christmas decorations on it. I took the image slightly slanted to make the photograph look uncomfortable. This image looks lonely and cold in the way that there is no one in the photograph and the way the fire isn’t in use. I’ve used the same square format as Diane uses, making my work more similar to hers.

If I was to improve my photograph I would change it to black and white to make it look more like Diane Arbus’ style.

Presentation three- my interpretation

I had to pick one body of Diane Arbus Work that I would then Interpretate in my own way, so I picked Dianes work from Picture Magazine.

From Picture Magazine I then had to Pick one image I would then interpret ate at least three different ways. The Image I had chosen was the image to the left called 'Christmas Tree in the Living Room'.

Presentation two-Diane Arbus, one body of work.

Revelations

This is the only book I could find on Diane Arbus called revelations.

Diane Arbus discovered most of her subjects in her hometown of New York City. She photographed people she found on the city streets in the 1950s to 1960s. The photographs from this period, explore the relationship between appearance of  illusion and belief.

Most importantly, Diane’s photographs show the encounter that becomes the central drama of the picture.

This book has all of her portrait work in which I shall show a few of the photographs she had taken 

Identical Twins, photographed in 1967

One of Diane Arbus' most recognizable images is "Identical Twins” - a portrait of twin sisters who are identical but yet not the same, This was photographed in 1967.

This photo is of two sisters standing side by side. One of the sisters gives a slight smile, whilst the other offers a slight frown.

The girls are wearing the same black dress with white collars and cuffs, white tights and thick white headbands in their hair. They are both looking straight into the camera and as you look from one to the other you realizes that their features aren’t so identical.

With this image it seems she was less interested in the composition and focused more on the lighting, which she lit with direct flash.

Child with Toy Hand Grenade

This is Diane Arbus’ photo shoot of ‘child with toy hand grenade. I put this in as I thought it was interesting to see how Diane got to her finished piece. As you can see she did a lot of experimenting with composition and each photograph has the boy with different facial expressions. This is because Diane wanted to get a different facial expression off the boy making him look awkward and uncomfortable.

Diane Arbus quoted ‘I work from awkwardness’, and she has in her hand the image of the ‘child with toy hand grenade’.

This to me is exactly what I feel when looking at any of Diane Arbus images ‘awkward’. There's something about the way these images are different from what you see in other photographs. The models aren't pretty or calm, infact there more on edge and disturbed. This is a unique style of work which I think Diane has done incredibly well to make her own work stand out.

Picture

I found this magazine called picture which Diana Arbus featured in in 1964.

 Magazine spread

This magazine spread was featuring ‘Christmas tree in a living room,’ photographed in1963 and ‘A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing.’ photographed in 1966.

These two images are very different in the sense that the first image is indoors and has no people involved in it, where as the second one is outdoors of a family portrait.

To me the first image is about how empty a house can be around Christmas time as people are very busy with working and shopping, preparing themselves for Christmas day. This image makes me feel a little sad as the Christmas tree looks very lonely hided in the corner of the room as if its been forgotten about.

The second image to me is on a typical young family outing and about spending time together. The children look irritated and the parents look fed up, was this to do with the way Diane Arbus was photographing them? Or is it simply to do with coping as a family in that day and age.

Conclusion so far...

When I got given Diane Arbus to research I was very disappointed at first as she didn’t seem like an artist I would relate to with my own work. But after looking at a few of her photographs I got more and more interested in her style of working.

I feel like Diane had a different way of seeing the world which you can see when you look at any of her images. Instead of going for a pretty picture she tried to find the real side to people and share it with the rest of the world. Because of this I have a lot of respect for Diane Arbus and she has made me open my eyes more to what’s really around me when taking my own photographs.

Diane has had her work exhabitioned all over the world, places such as New york, Chicago, Canada, Texas, California, Florida, England, Scotland, Germany and many more. Her work was only appreciated after her death and has now been seen by thousands. 

Facts About Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was born march 14th 1923 in new york city and died age 48 in 1971 by committing suiside.

She specialised in black and white square photographs of people who seemed ugly or surreal. Her style was to capture people un posed and in their natural form to show more character in her work.

Many people refer to Diane as ‘the photographer of freaks’.

Above is an image of a Twin-lens reflex camera, which is what Diane Arbus used in her photographs. It is called a twin lens as there are two lens, one is the viewer and one is for taking the photograph. It also has a 45 degrees mirror which is why it is called a reflex camera, this is the equipment that helps Diane get the square finish she was after. 

Artist Research

Here are a few of Diane Arbus photographs I used in my presentation.

Child with toy hand grenade. Photographed in New York City in 1962.

This photograph is rather disturbing in the way the boy is pulling a face and holding a hand grenade in one hand, with a claw like gesture in the other hand.

Also the boy has the left strap of his jumper awkwardly hanging off his shoulder, with his long slim arms by his side, Clenching his toys in his hand.

This is a typical image of a young boy in his own imaginary world, I feel Diane captured this really well. Also the lighting through the trees gives nice detail in the background, also making the boy stand out more. 

No Name.

This image makes me feel really uncomfortable, as I’m not sure where the model is looking. Her eyes and mind seem to be in different places as there is a strong confused look on her face.

I’m unsure of what this image is about but just by looking at it now, to me its about the women in her natural form.

I also like the way Diane has cropped this image so it is focused on the women's face with out any distraction from the back ground. 

Photographed in 1971

This image is very unreal as its strange to find a man wearing a mask, in the middle of the day in a field.

I’m not sure why the person is wearing a mask in the photograph, but just looking at it now, to me its like saying people have a hard mask on to front other people and no one truly knows what is hiding underneath. I also think that because Diane specializes in taking photographs of ugly and surreal people this is why she has included the mask, to add to the effects of being ugly and looking unnatural.

I like the use of distance in this image, it helps exaggerate the emptiness of the field making the figure look more lonely and more surreal, the shadow also emphasis this.

A Naked Man Being A Women, Photographed in 1970

This image gives a bit of humour to Diane Arbus work, as its very unusual to see a grown man wear a women's bikini in a caravan. I feel the curtains behind the man adds to the theatre style giving more of a sense of humar in the image. As you can see there is a dog on the mans lap, to me I think the dog is there as a sign of power to the man as well as the way the man is sat on the chair with his hand on his hip and stern look in his eye, this is also a sign that he has power.

I cant help but ask myself, was this image planned by the photographer? Or is this actually what the man in the image does in his spare time?

A Young Man With Curlers, Photographed in 1965

 I really like this image as its something you don’t see often. Its strange in the sense that its a man wearing hair curlers and has perfectly shaped eye brows.

Even the way the man is holding his cigarette in his hand with long fingernails, gives a sense that this man is more femanine rather than manly this is what makes this picture look so surreal.

When this image was first exhabitioned, one of the early reactions to the photograph were strong, for example someone spat on it in 1967 at the Museum of Modern Art.