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Photography plays an essential role in human history since it captures moments that can be revisited in the future. As a result, photographers aim at taking pictures that resonate with specific moments to tell a story. Therefore, a picture can form part of art through the idealizations to the audience. Arbus showcased her work in 1972 with one hundred and twelve photos at the Museum of Modern Art (Sontag 32). Her depictions in the photographs showcase the problems that human beings face. Thus, the photos do not intend to provoke compassion but rather portray predicaments of individuals through their general outlook.
According to Sontag, Arbus’s photographs concentrate on portraying victims in their original environment. In all of her photographs, the subjects appear to be ugly, wearing grotesque clothing, and unpleasing to the eye. When compared to Steichen’s work, his photos show a lack of human differences and conflicts due to the showcase of subjects at their best. On the other hand, Arbus portrays a world devoid of happiness and full of hopelessness by showing people at their worst (Sontag 33). While Arbus’s photos display an honest view of the subjects, they do not elicit feelings of compassion. Consequently, the photographs prove the existence of a different world with people having no privileges undergoing significant challenges. The subjects in the photographs were from such areas as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland in the United States (Sontag 34). Arbus dedicated her life to photography to collect the most painful images of humanity. Her pursuit of pain is majorly directed towards increasing awareness to people in society living unaffected by the issues of others. Therefore, in the long run, more people understood the consequences of inequality and the problems that others face daily.
Apart from that, Arbus’s photographs further show attention to the subject matter based on the calm composure they present. The people posed correctly showing the amount of time taken by Arbus to reassure them of their role and purpose (Sontag 38). Furthermore, the subjects are also unaware of their ugliness as portrayed in the photographs. Additionally, they also show a majority of the subjects facing straight into the camera. This adds to the scene created by Arbus making them look more deranged. In contrast, most people would not agree to freely expose themselves on camera; thus, such poses show how cooperative the subjects were during the shoots (Sontag 37). This means that the photographer had to befriend them to encourage them to participate in the process, while following the instructions provided. Throughout her life, Arbus stuck with her theme and her unfortunate death brought more attention to her photographs by showing the implications of such devastating work. It also pointed to the truth behind her choice of photographs, showing the problems of others that may not have been visible to the rest of the world.
Sontag’s analysis depicts a true version of Arbus’s career as a photographer through the type of photos she took, hence I agree with the interpretations. Her focus was mainly on the problems the people faced and not on the individuals themselves. Consequently, all the people, despite their differences showed a similar identity based on their shared characteristics. With suffering being a unifying character, the freaks, nudists, and suburban couples in the collection of photographs were all depicted the same (Sontag 47). The aim of Arbus’s photographs was to pass a message for more people to understand the suffering that others undergo across the country. With more people considerate of the concept of humanity, more action could be taken to address the societal issues appropriately. Therefore, Arbus showed consistency with the portrayed ugliness of the subjects in the photographs. While America may seem like a successful and powerful country, a section of the population lives in abject poverty and face discrimination (Sontag 48). The photography by Arbus, thus, depicts these challenges to destroy the notion of total happiness in the country.
The photographs taken by Arbus aimed at showcasing the problems that human beings face. Therefore, they do not intend to provoke compassion but rather portray their predicaments through their general outlook. Sontag analyses the process and subsequent results of her work to determine the role of the depictions. Arbus majorly showed people at their worst, depicting a world lacking happiness. She further displayed an increasingly targeted pursuit for pain majorly directed towards increasing the awareness of discriminated and unwanted people in society. Her process of photography involved talking to the people and reassuring them to poses calmly. By directly facing the camera and seemingly staring into the lens, the subjects showed a sense of trust. This enabled Arbus to capture moments that genuinely depicted the feelings of the people in their environment. The ugliness of the photos was a deliberate action to raise awareness of the struggles of others, thus painting a picture of the differences in society and the privileges some enjoy. This model of photography offers a powerful message as compared to others that may focus on pain or the happy moments of humanity.
Work Cited
Sontag, Susan. America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly. Anchor Books, 1977.
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