Art lovers, photographers and critics alike lap up Arbus' portraits like they are crack for the art-starved soul. We say she is an innovative and significant photographer - her techniques, her composition, her incisive cultural commentary make her one of the biggest and most successful names in the field. However there is one criticism that finds its way to Arbus that refuses to be ignored and that has more than anything made me think about the nature and ethics of photographing people. The question is: is it Arbus' photography that we cooly appreciate or are Arbus' unusual subjects that which we are oddly attracted to? The freakshows of the 19th century, with their bearded ladies and siamese twins were a form of entertainment for the masses in which ordinary people paid and gathered around to revel in the perverse pleasure of human anomaly. We all stare, letting ourselves be simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by that which will never enter our social world, taking comfort in our relative normality. Is this the same pleasure that we take in Arbus' photos, made legitimate by its status as art? Were it not for her subjects, how would we judge the artistic merit of these photos? These are the questions I ask myself every time I have taken a photograph of a person who I thought was unusual, whether in appearance, dress or behavior. Ultimately my interest in people supercedes both my ethics and the desire to see on portraits an egomaniacal fingerprint of the artist - question their merit if you will...
