I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present. I want to gather them, like somebody's grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful.
There's a kind of power thing about the camera. I mean everyone knows you've got some edge. You're carrying some magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a way.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The camera holds a unique power to capture and define the essence of people, influencing perceptions and interactions.
Diane Arbus emphasizes the transformative power of the camera in her quote. It suggests that possessing a camera grants the photographer an edge or advantage, as it allows them to capture a moment in a way that reveals deeper truths about their subjects. This act of photographing can create a sense of magic, as it freezes the subjects in a way that might not occur in everyday life, altering both how they are seen and how they see themselves.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a photography workshop, you might say, 'As Diane Arbus said, there's a kind of power thing about the camera.'
More from Diane Arbus
All quotes →I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.
... I must begin at whatever pace is possible, to work on the book of my own that i vaguely keep assuming lies at the end of the rainbow. It is after all my rainbow and if I don't do it no one else will...Survival is the secret so you really can't afford to doubt yourself for long because you are all you've got. The only thing to do is to go the limit with it. Exceed.
Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed, and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them.
I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself.
If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life. I mean people are going to say, You're crazy. Plus they're going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.
Similar quotes
I'm creating an imaginary — it's always imaginary — world in which I would like to live.
I just don't hear anyone else making the music I'm making in my head, so I'll have to do it myself.
The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the starts.
I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up.
I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. Some of it is background music, and some of it is things that might affect a person's day, if not their life, or change an attitude. The best songs are the ones that make you feel something.
Usually in theater, the visual repeats the verbal. The visual dwindles into decoration. But I think with my eyes. For me, the visual is not an afterthought, not an illustration of the text. If it says the same thing as the words, why look? The visual must be so compelling that a deaf man would sit though the performance fascinated.