Guide to Spirituality

America, seen through photographs, darkly

Arbus's photographs are mostly taken straight on, in a way to make the person look more deranged. I think the point of the photos looking this way is for them to look sort of odd, but also too look sincere in a way that we feel badly for them. Arbus's photographs are of images that appear "grotesque" to the social norm of what many consider beautiful. I think the purpose of the people in these photographs looking straight forward is so the viewer is forced to look into their eyes and see straight into their soul like Arbus did with these people. Their eyes are probably meant to be expressive so that the viewer gets a sense of who they are and like the pictures of LUNPFM, we feel sorry for these people. Because the people in the photograph are real people when we look into their eyes and they look sad and ugly it makes us feel sorry for them and connect to them in that way, because there have been times when we've all felt sad and ugly. I think Arbus wants you to relate to these people in that they may be ugly at first glance but looking into their stares we find value in that persons life and in turn beauty.

America,Seen through photographs Darkly 27-37

Sontag talks alot about Walt Whitman and the differences between beauty and ugliness. There seems to be a struggle with photographers and their viewers between what is meant to be seen as beautiful and what is meant to be seen as ugly. On pg 28 it is said " There is probably no subject that cant be beautified; moreover , there is no way to suppress the tendency inherent in all photographs to accord value to their subjects. but the meaning of all value itself can be altered-" i took this to mean that beauty can be found in whats valuable. photographers capture something of value to them and that valuable moment person or thing personifies beauty. Later, on pg 33 the diffrence between beauty and ugliness is discussed between the photographs of Steichen and Arbus. Steichan sees humanity as "one" where as Arbus takes pictures of  "assorted monsters" and calims humanity is not "one." I think Steichen sees humanity as "one" and finds beauty in everything because what he sees in photographs he finds valuable and whats valuable has beauty and that's why it was photographed. The photos Arbus took i think are valuable as well and therefore you could also find beauty in them.