I’m reading Diane Arbus – Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow (Jonathan Cape, 2016). It combines comprehensive research with perceptiveness and an engaging writing style to tell an extraordinary story. Leaving aside the photography, there are insights into the human condition. Lubow writes about Arbus’ view of her friends free spirited Pati and Nancy:
….to Diane’s mind they were much alike, for they were confined in prisons of their own making. “They are independent – free as air as far as people go but walled round by their own idea of their independence,” she reflected. She thought she was the opposite: “utterly without prejudice or power in the world – just open and willing.” But it is always easier to make out other people’s prisons than one’s own. (p. 94)
He concludes the chapter:
She [Arbus] complained that she rarely felt anything in her entire life. She was untouched by the ordinary joys and pains that made people feel alive. This was her prison. (p. 98)
Photo: Mannequin, Valencia, Spain, 2013