"Opposition And Unity" In Diane Arbus’ Photography

Diane Arbus used photography to express the real world which people generally are not willing to accept. There are almost only character portrait in her photography: the "abnormal" people and "normar" people, and she expressed them with the true faces to the audience in a very direct way, and with this, she completely disintegrates the so -called civilization and moral society built with hypocrisy and vanity. She used images to explore the "normal" and "abnormal", "moral" and "immoral", and also discusses the "self" and "I".As a woman, she was born in a wealthy Jewish family, but through out her life worried for money. She gave up everything to get her own love, but broke up with her husband in the end. She was always kind and optimistic in front of people, but suffered from depression when she was alone. Sometimes she was disheveled but sometimes very elegant.As a photographer, she always relied on the others in terms of her personality, but could strongly expressed her independent opinions on photography. After breaking up with her husband, she was not only trying to play a role of a good mother but also a photographer who could take photos in and out of the bottom, sometimes even naked. Her photography style involves both fashion photography and also new documentary photography.Diane Arbus’ photography can be regarded as a kind of opposite and unified philosophy. This paper will build around her work Twins, to give a deeper understanding about Arbus from the view of Tai chi philosophy. This paper attempts to interprets her characteristics through this opposition and unity.In the first chapter, this paper talks about opposition and unity in Arbus’ contradictory life, and there are two sections in this chapter, including "Opposition and unity in Arbus’ life" and "Unity in photography". Respectively from the context, the life vein and photography combing analysis of opposition and unity. The first section includes "contradictory family" 、"symbiotic emotion", "split personality". This paper believe that the most important reason for what makes her personality is her contradictory family, the second reason is her symbiotic emotion and split personality. In the second section, this paper talks about her photograph life from three parts:fashion photography time, press photography time, self photography time.In the second chapter, this paper talks about Arbus’photography style, and this is the core of the paper. This paper will try to explain this style from "catch the reality of others and herself" and "find the contradiction between opposition and unity". In the first section, this paper talks about the first style from photograph on the "abnormal person" and photograph on the "normal person". In the second section, this paper talks about the second style from the split personality, the double identity and the expression of contradictory identity.In the third chapter, in order to explain the reason to be "Arbus" and the important significance to the current photography environment, this paper talks about the significance of Diane Arbus. There are three sections in this chapter, including "inheritance and beyond", "personal experience and public awareness of docking" and "identity and the market relations". In the first section, this paper talks about the relationship between Lisette Model and Arbus, August Sander and Arbus. In the second section, this paper analyses how mutual transformation can be done between her personal experiences and photography experiences. In the third section, this paper talks about avoiding identity of female photographer and departure from the consumer society to explain Arbus’view on the art. Such consciousness is what makes Arbus different from any other artists.