Fur

Caught FUR on dvd yesterday, and I got interested in Diane Arbus’ photography.. The movie’s a highly fictional portrayal of her life, and shows Diane (played by Nicole Kidman) and her relationship with and interest in “freaks”. She’s known for her photos of otherness, of outsiders; outcasts, of society she called freaks: giants, dwarfs, siamese twins, and the likes. But she’s also known for portraits of conventional subjects who are also captured in a way you don’t usually see in family photo albums. And guess what, she’s from one of the most prominent families in NYC in the 1950’s.

In this Washington Post article entitled “Double Exposure”,  the twins who were interviewed couldn’t recall their picture being taken, but the picture’s already one of the most celebrated in Arbus’ collection.

In today’s context, Arbus would probably be slammed for being one of the pretty babes holding a camera and calling herself a photographer, but I guess back in the days, pretty women from prominent backgrounds doing unconventional work called for attention more so than today.

But to take memorable and controversial pictures from everyday life is another way of looking at life, I guess.
But I’ll stick to food photography. hehe.