Arbus's curiosity made her search for an unseen world, as she said of her upbringing, "the outside world was so far from us," and this led her to develop a kinship to the underrepresented, the misunderstood, and the strange. These thoughts transfixed her and preoccupied her mind for the rest of her career. She openly called her subjects on the fringes of society, "freaks", which in her eyes, was not derogatory. She said that, "(freaks) don't have to go through life dreading what may happen, it's already happened. They've passed their test. They're aristocrats." These individuals were stigmatized in their public life, but through photography, become the source of wonder and fascination for an audience to gaze infinitely. A print of the iconic photograph was recently on view here in New York, at the Met Breuer’s exhibition “Diane Arbus: In the Beginning” (July 12–November 27,2016). A critically-acclaimed overview of the first seven years of the photographer’s career, the show is currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Grenade light Sign , Neon like , Grenade lamp, Grenade Wall decor, Grenade night light, edge Lit LED, Grenade art In the 1972 documentary about Arbus’ life titled Masters of Photography: Diane Arbus, she is quoted as saying that people have an actual self and an intended self, and that she liked to capture the gap between the two. She wanted to capture a person disarmed, when the way in which someone tries to present themselves to the world fades, and their internal or “true” self comes through. Of course, as the photographer she has the artistic liberty to determine what she portrays as a person’s “true” self. For example, in the aforementioned work Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, NYC, she apparently determined that the grim, frustrated face of the boy was most accurate to his true self, “truer” in some way than the silly, playful child in the other photos that she opted not to publish. Biographer Arthur Lubow writes of a time Diane recollected being a girl at summer camp, when all of the other girls were bitten by leeches, and she was disappointed she had not: “She complained that she had rarely felt anything in her entire life. She was untouched by the ordinary joys and pains that make people feel alive. This was her prison.” She was very public about her feelings of being a social outcast within her own community, and sought solace in her subjects on the fringe. In turn, she channeled her frustration and by extension, her outsider feelings, into her work and sought out the eccentric. It wasn't enough to capture a likeness; through multiple visits over many years she gained the access and the trust with her subjects, which often became friendships. "What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's," she once wrote. "And that's what all this is a little bit about. That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own."

Segal, David. "Double Exposure." The Washington Post, May 12, 2005, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005….

Arbus's short and troubled life resulted in a body of work that was, and continues to be, both celebrated for its compassion and condemned for its objectification. More than anything else, Arbus remains a mystery, a controversial mystery. It is often the case that art historians (and sensationalist news columnists) want to make her out to be more of a freak as to explain the nature of her work. They cite potential (and unconfirmed) sexual relations with her brother and her daughter's relationship with Marvin Israel (who was Arbus's long-time passion). Arbus's fixation on personal presentation requires us to explore the complicated relationship between personal vanity. She stated, "You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw... there's a point between what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you. And that has to do with what I've always called the gap between intention and effect." Here, Arbus is speaking to the idea of ones perceived self vs. the true self. And perhaps, she is trying to say, there is no authentic self; we are merely constantly performing and showcasing the way we desire to be perceived.Arbus found intrigue and conjured beauty in unlikely subjects, and made remarkable portraits of people that were not often deemed "fit" to be in front of the lens of a camera. She sought out unique characters on the fringes of society for her work, and said to this, "I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them." This went a long way from the art that is often thought to be reserved only for the aesthetically pleasing, as opposed to showing the "real" or "true" world. During her lifetime, Arbus made relatively few prints of her images. Sadly, she committed suicide in 1971 at just 48 years old. She started her photography career shy and avoiding actual human interaction and chose pre-constructed scenes like wax museums or unbeknownst audiences such as this image. She would often wait for the opportune moment in parks and city sidewalks, often photographing people from behind or without their consent or knowledge. She obliged the grip of the photographic excellence as the search for the perfect moment became dire. She gave up shooting movie theaters when she changed from her 35mm camera to a more professional, albeit bulkier, medium format camera. Shortly after this image was taken she started using a 2 ? inch twin-lens reflex Rolleiflex, then later a Mamiya C33, which are harder to use with discretion. The medium format camera produces a square negative, which came to be one of Arbus' compositional signatures. Shortly after this image was taken her distinctive style began to take shape as she took more risks and found out how to relate to people she sought to capture. In 1941, David Nemerov hired Allan and Diane to photograph models for Russek's newspaper advertisements. Diane took to designing and styling the fashion models, while Allan photographed the models and perfected the photos in the dark room. Shortly after, they began publishing with major fashion publications such as, Vogue, Glamour, and Harper's Bazaar, which placed the Arbus' among the likes of other noted names in fashion photography such as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.