#da dwarves you will always be famous to me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

morporkian-cryptid · 3 years ago

Text

Today in "Elliott's Niche AF AUs": one (1) person asked me about this, sooooo...

Lupin III Discworld AU crossover headcanon pile thingy!!!

For those who don't know: Discworld is a flat world held on the back of four giant elephants on top of a giant turtle, floating through space. That world has magic, as well as trolls, dwarves, goblins etc... but in a way that's meant to subvert typical fantasy tropes.

Ankh-Morpork, the biggest city on the Disc, is a hotbed of crime, innovations, and innovations in crime. It is run by a council of guilds, and by a Patrician (a lifelong tyrant; he's elected by the guilds but he has the final say in everything). Notorious for having an Assassins', Thieves', Beggars', and Seamstresses' (sex workers) Guilds. Also notorious for its Watch (the police), which is actually surprisingly good at solving crimes. It's also the biggest immigration destination on the Disc.

Character backstories/situations:

Lupin : half-quirmian-half-agatean (Quirm being the DW equivalent of France), grew up in the Agatean Empire (DW equivalent of China/East Asia). He moved to Ankh-Morpork to follow Fujiko, and/or to escape Zenigata. He’s an illegal thief (meaning he's not registered with the Thieves' Guild), and his favourite hobby (besides just stealing in general) is screwing with the Guild. Commander Vimes, the head of the Watch, is supposed to catch him (or at least help Zenigata catch him), but he's secretly rooting for him because he dislikes the Guild slightly more than he dislikes Lupin.

Jigen : son of a couple of Agatean immigrants in Ankh-Morpork, grew up as a street urchin in the Shades (the most crime-ridden neighborhood of the notoriously crime-ridden Ankh-Morpork). He joined the Assassins’ Guild later in his life as a (mostly self-taught) sharpshooter, with a talent that outshone that of the Guild's best students. He later quit the Guild after he met Lupin (possibly had a contract to kill Lupin, and decided “screw this I’m going with him”). He can use any kind of shooting weapons, but favors crossbows. He’s tried stealing and using the gonne (DW's first and only firearm); it didn't go well. He somehow managed to learn one single spell from the wizards, the fireball, by becoming pals with Arcchancelor Ridcully (wizard, head of the Unseen University, and famous for his unfortunate passion for crossbow shooting).

Goemon : agatean immigrant/fugitive, master swordsman. He left Agatea because Fujiko stole his Zantetsuken and fled to Ankh-Morpork, so Goemon had to follow her to retrieve his sword. He then met Lupin and Jigen and decided to stick around. The Zantetsuken is a talking sword, and its personality is basically the embodiment of Bushido. It's extremely annoying (like all talking swords), but Goemon loves it. (it was probably his only friend back in Agatea)

Fujiko : agatean immigrant/fugitive. Ran away from the Agatean Empire chased by Goemon. She joined the Thieves’ Guild, but everyone confuses her for a seamstress because her technique usually involves seduction. She tried it on Vetinari once. It failed spectacularly.

Zenigata : agatean immigrant, part of the Empire’s police force, who came to Ankh-Morpork chasing Lupin. He only brought his assistant Yata with him, and has to cooperate with the Watch to have resources to catch Lupin. Vimes doesn’t particularly like him, but he’s good at his work so he can’t say anything (they're both too stubborn to get along).

Bonus:

Yata: Zenigata’s assistant, came to Ankh-Morpork with him, rapidly became great friends with Rufus Drumknott (the Head Secretary of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari). He has a bad influence on Drumknott. He also befriended Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, but then again Carrot befriends everyone.

Ami: She's a clacks operator. Clacks are basically the DW equivalent of telegraph. There's a group of clacks hackers called the GNU, so she might have joined them.

Albert: He's part of the Patrician's Dark Clerks (they're the secret services of Ankh-Morpork)

Rebecca: She's from Quirm. That’s all I have about her for now. (Quirm's the equivalent of France, but in the french translation it was made into an equivalent of Italy)

Random-Ass Headcanons

Lupin gets along like a house on fire with Moist von Lipwig (former conman and current postmaster, notorious adrenaline junkie), both figuratively and literally. Lupin and Lipwig sometimes team up on heists and rely on each other’s help, when they’re not busy competing against each other because Lupin keeps daring Lipwig to thieving competitions.

One of the contests’ goal is to steal Vetinari’s manuscript, The Servant. Fujiko wins. She wasn’t even in the race.

///

Fujiko quickly became friends with Adora-Belle Dearheart (Moist von Lipwig's rather explosive girlfriend), they get together every now and then to trash-talk their respective boyfriends.

///

For some reason everyone thinks Lupin is a werewolf. (it’s actually Jigen)

(maybe. I haven't yet decided whether or not he is. That would be a very good source of angst, considering what most werewolves are like, and also a very good source of domestic fluff if the whole gang has to adapt to the moon cycle and Jigen's transformations. Idk. Might be fun.)

///

Fujiko owns a horse golem (a gift from Adora-Belle or something she stole, we may never know). The Gang also owns a carriage, modified with a spell so it will drive faster, and they drive it completely carelessly. It has been destroyed and rebuilt countless times. (actually a bunch of spells, Lupin probably found a way to blackmail Ridcully so he could mod the shit out of his carriage. Or they rely on Jigen’s friendship with Ridcully)

///

Lupin uses swamp dragons as firearms (dialogue courtesy of @marquise-de-clarabas: Jigen: You stole a dragon??? Lupin: I didn’t steal him! He’s his own person and can make decisions himself! Dragon: I wanna steal). He has an alias and disguise entirely dedicated to visiting the Sunshine Sanctuary For Sick Dragons, and somehow became friends with Lady Sybil Ramkin-Vimes (Commander Vimes' wife, and the greatest expert on swamp dragons in the city, probably on the Disc). Vimes doesn't know about it, and Lupin finds the whole situation hilarious. He constantly makes jokes about how he’s playing with fire.

///

The Thieves’ Guild and the Watch are competing to catch the Gang, but secretly Vimes is rooting for the Gang (the Guild just hates them). That said, Vimes also hates Lupin (only slightly less than he dislikes the Guild), because he's always a little shit whenever he gets put in jail, and then he immediately breaks out.

///

Rincewind (famously bad wizard with a shit luck and a tendency to run from problems) once got arrested by Zenigata, because he got startled by him yelling LUPAAAAAAAAAN! and started running for the hills, making Zenigata believe he was Lupin in disguise. Rincewind is terrified of Zenigata.

///

Zenigata is actively trying to stop the Thieves' Guild from catching Lupin and Co, both because he wants to catch them himself, and because he knows what the Guild does to illegal thieves and he doesn’t want it to happen to Lupin.

///

Lupin stole Ridcully’s hat (custom wizard hat with a bunch of pockets, drawers, a crossbow, and a tiny flask of alcohol) as a gift for Jigen’s birthday. He also stole Lipwig’s hat (golden cap with dove wings), after which Adora claimed she didn’t recognize Moist (dialogue courtesy of @marquise-de-clarabas: Moist: C’mon babe, it’s me, your boyfriend! Adora, knowing full well who he is: I have never met this man in my entire life). He also raided the Assassins' Guild's armory/museum to get a birthday gift for Goemon.

///

About Jigen and the gonne (spoilers for Men at Arms) : basically, the gonne being such a dangerous and destructive weapon compared to crossbows, it has a nigh-magical attraction on people, and awakens and strengthens whatever lust for power, vengeance, blood etc they have. It basically controls its user and feeds on their convictions, addictions, wants, etc. The only person known to have resisted it is Vimes (because he's a stubborn mofo with a sense of morals you could bend iron on), and even he came damn near to losing his mind. (And Carrot, because... he's Carrot.)

Assuming the gonne didn't get destroyed in this AU: after they steal it, Lupin tries to use it, gets completely possessed/cursed (again) and accidentally tries to murder his friends (again), prompting Jigen to take it from him. Jigen then gets possessed as well, and they start fighting for the gonne, until Goemon just walks in, takes it out of their hands and takes it away. Goemon's completely unaffected by the gonne because 1) of his ascetic training and 2) "it is a filthy morporkian artifact and cannot compare to the noble art of the sword."

///

Zenigata often teams up with Angua (resident werewolf of the Watch), they get along very well. The Gang is very easy to track, they smell like a tobacco factory that has caught on fire.

///

Yata and Drumknott (Patrician's head secretary, and confidante, sort of) get together after office hours, and argue about whose boss is the best (because as we all know they both have a crush on respective bosses). One day Drumknott accidentally calls Vetinari “Sempai” after he heard Yata call Zenigata that all the time.

///

Lupin follows Lipwig’s example and steals all of Yata’s pencils every time he visits the Pseudopolis Yard (the Watch's HQ). Drumknott is fuming when Yata tells him about it.

///

Leonardo Da Quirm is butt-naked, because Part 4.

///

Something with vampires, probably.

///

tagging @carriagelamp and @mad-whoman-with-a-book00 because I know you may be potentially interested in this AU ^^

#lupin iii #lupin the third #discworld #ankh-morpork #terry pratchett #lupin iii discworld au #already making a tag in case i make more posts; you never know #the hobbit's headcanons

47 notes · View notes

houseofrahl · 7 years ago

Text

Lots of tag games

I apologise it takes me so long, but I rarely have an access to a laptop and I don’t know how to edit text on mobile so it looks the way I want.

5 Things!

I was tagged by @fizzy-custard. thank you, Hun! :)

five things in my bag backpack:

notebook

pencil

tissues

pepper spray

chewing gum

five things in my bedroom:

memory foam pillow

powerbank

towels

books

clothes

five things I’ve always wanted to do:

see F1 and Rally

meet Robert Kubica

learn 5 different languages

travel to NZ

go to Qlimax

five things that make me happy:

music

books

dogs

when a new recipe turns to be good and tasty

driving

five things i’m currently into:

Arrow

reading and learning about celiac disease

looking for new gluten-free recipes

reading

relaxing

five things on my to-do list:

find a new job (once again)

visit my hairdresser

buy a perfume

make sure i stay healthy

buying a new phone

I was tagged by the lovely @fizzy-custard to spell out my URL with favorite songs. Thank you, Darling.

H - Highway To Hell by ACDC

O - Out of Heaven by Dr Rude

U - Up In The Air by 30 Seconds To Mars

S - She’s Crazy But She’s Mine by Alex Sparrow

E - Extreme by Zatox feat. Dave Revan

O - Oracle by Timmy Trumpet

F - Famous by Skillet

R - Resistance by Muse

A - Alone by Alan Walker

H - Heroes by Da Tweekaz & Darren Styles

L - Like I Do by Asher Monroe

Rules: Answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions.

I was tagged by the lovely @fromthedeskoftheraven. Thank you.

1. coke or pepsi: red bull cola ;) 2. disney or dreamworks: Disney 3. coffee or tea: water :P 4. books or movies: books 5. windows or mac: Windows 6. dc or marvel: both, both is good 7. xbox or playstation: playstation 8. Dragon Age or Mass Effect: Haven’t played either of them 9. night owl or early riser: night owl 10. cards or chess: cards 11. chocolate or vanilla: chocolate 12: vans or converse: Converse 13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash, or Adaar: I have no idea! 14. fluff or angst: fluff 15. beach or forest: forest 16. dogs or cats: dogs 17. clear skies or rain: clear skies 18. cooking or eating out: cooking 19. spicy food or mild food: spicy 20. halloween/samhain or solstice/yule/christmas: Christmas 21. would you rather be a little too cold or a little too hot: a little too hot 22. if you could have a superpower, what would it be: healing 23. animation or live action: live action 24. paragon or renegade: ???? 25. baths or showers: showers 26. team cap or team iron man: Team Iron Man 27. fantasy or sci-fi: fantasy and sci-fi 28. do you have three or four favorite quotes? Actually, just one 29. youtube or netflix: Youtube 30. harry potter or percy jackson: percy? 31. when you feel accomplished: when my work is done completely 32. star wars or star trek: Star Wars 33. paperback books or hardback books: depends on the book 34. handwriting or type: type 35. velvet or satin: velvet 36. video games or movies: movies 37. would you rather be the dragon or own the dragon: be the dragon 38. learning chinese or learning spanish: Spanish 39. what is the best concert you’ve been to? haven’t been to any :( 40. Would you rather be able to speak every language or be able to talk to animals? speak every language 41. Be front row for your favorite artist and not meet them, or meet them but have lawn seats: lawn seats 42. City or Countryside: city :) 43. Would you rather be a mutant, jedi, or wizard? Wizard 44. fried pickles or mozzarella sticks??? I’ve never eaten a fried pickle, so mozzarella sticks

45. Would you rather swim in a pool, lake, or the ocean? Pool

46. What’s your favorite city in the world? Cracow

I was tagged by: @derekhaleimagines Thank you, Sunshine!

Where is your phone? on the desk Your hair? long & dark brown Your dad? who? Your other half? I’m a whole person on my own, thank you very much Your favorite food? pizza and pasta Your dream last night? I don’t remember my dreams Your favorite drink? water Fear? spiders Favorite shoes? flats Favorite way to relax? read, watch my shows, music Your mood? relaxed Your love? knowledge and intelligence Where were you last night? my bedroom Something you aren’t? busy Muffins? only gluten free Wishlist item? health Where did you grow up? a small village Last thing you did? iron shirts What are you wearing? shorts and t-shirt Something you hate? disrespect, when I’m treated like I’m an infantile idiot Your pets? dog and 4 cats Life? ‘sup with it? Regrets? yup

Rules: tag nine people you want to get to know better.

I was tagged by @derekhaleimagines ans @fizzy-custard. Thanks! :)

Relationship status: single

Favorite color: blue, red and green

Lipstick or chapstick: chapstick

Last song you listened to: David Guetta feat. Usher - Without You

Last movie you watched: Transformers: The Last Knight

Top 3 tv shows: Arrow, Legends Of Tomorrow, Teen Wolf

Top 3 characters: Derek Hale (Teen Wolf), Oliver Queen (Arrow), Tony Stark

Top 3 ships: Olicity (Arrow) and that’s it

Books you are currently reading: I’m in need of new books, have read all I have at home atm

Top 5 musicals: I don’t watch musicals

Name Game

I was tagged by @happlepie18 Thanks :D

Rules: Answer and tag ten people. Use the first letter of your name to answer each question. Real answers only. If the person before you had the same initial, you must have different answers. You can’t use the same word twice.

Name: Marta

Four letter word: Mind

A Boy’s name: Miguel

Occupation: Massage Therapist

Something You Wear: Mittens

Food: Mackerel

Something you find in the bathroom: Mirror

A place: Malibu

Reason for being late: Morning rush

Something you yell: Mine

Movie title: Minions

Something you drink: Mulitivitamin juice

An animal: Mice

A type of car: Mini

Song: Memories by David Guetta feat. Kid Cudi

Song Game

Tagged by the lovely @obsessed-withthe-hales

Rules: put your music on shuffle, list the first 9 songs and your favorite lyrics from each.

1. Liquid State by Muse Take me for a ride Break me up and steal what's left inside

2. Photograph by Ed Sheeran

We keep this love in a photograph We made these memories for ourselves 3. Never Break Me by Brennan Heart

You can call me names to bring me down some more But you will never break me

4. Memories by David Guetta feat. Kid Cudi All the crazy shit I did tonight Those will be the best memories. I just wanna let it go for the night That would be the best therapy for me

5. In The End by Linkin Park

I tried so hard And got so far But in the end It doesn't even matter

6. Sniper by Coone & Dirtcaps

I see my prey running away There's no way out There's no escape

7. Mercy by Muse Save me from the ghosts and shadows Before they eat my soul

8. Tonight Will Never Die by Code Black & Brennan Heart Love when the sound is crashing in on me Love how the lights awake the night Love where we stand before eternity

9. Back From The Dead by Skillet Light it up, light it up, now I'm burning Feel the rush, feel the rush of adrenaline We are young, we are strong, we will rise Cause I'm back, back, back from the dead tonight

I was tagged by @fromthedeskoftheraven and @fizzy-custard (thank you both!) to put my music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs that come up

1. Get Lucky - Daft Punk 2. Angels & Demons - D-Block & S-te-Fan 3. Shape Of You - Ed Sheeran 4. Neutron Star Collision - Muse 5. Fairlight - The Judge 6. Are You Ready - ACDC 7. Wodka - Da Tweekaz 8. Magic - Wasted Penguinz 9. You’re The Voice - John Farnham 10. Destiny - Headhunterz

Tagged by the awesome @everyjourneylove and @fizzy-custard. Thanks, Ivy and Jay :)

Rules: Answer the questions and tag 20 (or less.. or none.. or.. all ??) blogs you want to get to know better!

Nickname: I don’t have any

Star sign: Gemini

Height: 5′4″

Time right now: 9:35 pm

Last thing you googled: gluten free recipes

Fave music artist: Way too many to list

Song stuck in my head: Despacito by Luis Fonsi

Last movie I watched: Transformers: The Last Knight

Last TV show I watched: Shadowhunters

What I’m wearing right now: shorts and t-shirt

When I created this blog: March 2016

The kind of stuff I post: All kinds of Middle Earth stuff, Arrow and other things

Do I do asks regularly: Nope :(

Why did i choose my URL: Simply because I love Richard Rahl ;)

Gender: Female

Hogwarts house: ...

Pokemon team: Don’t play

Favorite color: Blue, red and green

Favorite characters: too much to list them all

Dream job: car mechanic

Number of blankets: One

Followers: 46

Ok, I think that’s all. If I missed something I’m sorry. Thank you all for tagging me in stuff and I hope in the future I can do the games faster ;)

#tag games

3 notes · View notes

cliff-seeger-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Diane Arbus: The Empathy of Art

When I first became interested in photography, Diane Arbus was already an artist that I had admired. During my first couple years of high school I became interested in films and filmmaking. I didn’t really know how to learn about films at that age so I just watched as many films as I could. One of films was Manhattan by Woody Allen. There’s a scene in which he, Diane Keaton, and their respective dates are at an art gallery and are talking about a photography gallery that is downstairs. Keaton’s character Mary remarks that the whole gallery “was all derivative of Diane Arbus without any of the wit.” I obviously didn’t know what that meant at the time, so I paused the movie to see who this Arbus was. I instantly knew what she was talking about; it just clicked. The name has stayed with me for years and I imagine it will stay there.

Diane Arbus came from reasonably comfortable roots. She was born in 1923 to a Jewish couple that owned a successful department store, “Russek’s”, in New York City. This made her somewhat sequestered of the effects on America during The Great Depression of the 1930s. By the time she was 18, she married her childhood sweetheart, Allan Arbus. They both had interest in photographers and photography and began a photography business in Manhattan in 1946, often being employed to take photos of the store and products of “Russek’s”, Diane’s father’s department store. Arbus worked as a commercial photographer until 1956, and although her commercial work is certainly notable, it isn’t quite what she was remembered for and why she has such a legacy of both fame and infamy. After her commercial work, she started to go on more personal endeavors into photography. She was most known for taking photographs of less than exposed, undermined, unrepresented, or underappreciated members of America, and even just humanity. People like dwarves, midgets, transvestites, strippers, nudists, etc. However, to simply label her as a photographer of just “freaks” would be a disservice to her. Above all else she was a humanist photographer. Taking photos not only of the people but of human emotions and feelings in things that weren’t of the people themselves. She would be very intimate with her subjects, really getting to know them, often times revisiting them after years to take their photos again. She would go into their homes and capture them in their living rooms or on their beds, or perhaps at their jobs. She would even strip naked with the nudists when she photographed them. Arbus was able to capture true empathy in the camera because she had true empathy without it. Her first major exhibition that gave her a lot of recognition was an exhibit called “New Documents”. It was an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art that was, as described by John Szarkowski, curator for MoMA, “a new generation of documentary photographers”. It showcased the works of Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, and of course Diane Arbus. The exhibit was described as “photography that emphasized the pathos and conflicts of modern life presented without editorializing or sentimentalizing but with a critical, observant eye.” However, Arbus faced many depressive episodes and took her own life by ingesting barbiturates and slashing her wrists on July 26th, 1971. The collection of her work she still owned was inherited by her eldest daughter, Doon, which she put on display in Venice Biennale and then later as a posthumous retrospective at MoMA, slightly over a year after Arbus’ death.

Arbus’ body of work is probably more influential to me than that of any singular photographer or artist that I admire. Not only is it bold but above all else it’s respectful and it’s empathetic. She doesn’t hold a candle up to these people as if to say “look at them and laugh”, but as if to say “here we are”. There isn’t a drop of ill intent in her work and that is what documentary work is all about: documenting the world as it is without an agenda. Most of her photos are square, which is due to her taking photos with a Rolleiflex or Mamiya C33 at waist level. The square format is really interesting since it eliminates the concepts of landscapes or verticals. It is as freeing a format as it is limiting when all four borders of your frame are equidistant. Aesthetically speaking, her photos are as brash and in-your-face as her subject matter, which is said as a compliment. She gives a lot of the “freaks” she takes photos of a very harsh and dramatic lighting, even going so far as to use flash photography during daylight in order to capture this surreal quality in many of her portraits. That level of empathy that she has in her photographs has always stayed with me and is what I try to emulate and channel when taking my own photographs. In conclusion, I will include and talk about 10 of her images that vary from many of her series and years of her work to show the diversity in her style as well as how prolific of a photographer she was.

1. Albino Sword Swallower at a Carnival, MA 1970

A very formal photograph but the most interesting part to me was the background. The tent in the background is this structure that isn’t that large but still towering over her. You still see the scope of the tent because Arbus shows the top. It would’ve been a completely different photograph if she just shot the sword swallower dead-on or adjusted it so only the tent was in her viewfinder as nothing more than a backdrop. It would lose something there. There are so many different levels of contrast here with the large white truck and/or sky behind her being this bright white but the tent being so dark and then again with the swallower’s skin and the tent, and yet again a third time with her blouse and her skirt. It all works so evenly together contrast wise. However, we can’t forget the swallower herself, the subject of the frame. It evokes, to me, a very biblical feeling with the hilt of the sword and the posture of her in that of a crucifix. Also how the back of her knuckles hit the back of the tent which makes it cave in slightly creating this haunting effect as if she’s striking the canvas as she makes this pose of “ta-da��.

2. Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, NYC, 1962

This is probably one of the most famous pictures Arbus has done. It depicts this boy: in one hand he has a grenade, and his other hand is a sort of clawing grasp. But perhaps the most notable thing is the strap of his overalls is folded over on the same hand that looks like a claw. His expression and his posture both give this feeling of exploding apart from the grenade in his hand. He feels like he’s bursting at the seams. The contrast of this one is also a lot lower than what she usually does; it’s great how the shadows of the trees lightly paint the ground of the park around him.

3. Christmas Tree in a Living Room in Levittown, Long Island, NY, 1963

This one I find interesting for a whole different reason. This completely pristine living room without any blemishes to speak of and in the center is this Christmas tree completely draped in tinsel and decorations. It’s the only thing decorated in the room, and what I could only assume also the whole house, and it’s squeezed into that corner even though there is what appears to be a window to the right of the frame where the light is coming in, a usual spot to display your tree from the inside out. It isn’t quite trapped in the corner but it isn’t exactly allowed to breathe either. The second part that interests me about it is the location the actual photograph was taken, Levittown. Levittown, NY, and a few others, were the first ever mass produced suburbs in America post World War II and became a turning point in American living and real estate. For the first time ever people had these affordable suburb homes en masse. Within the course of a year or two entire towns were built out of nothing and made into whole communities but each of these houses sort of lacked a sense of identity. They were nearly all identical architecturally and I find it interesting to wonder what the neighbors of this home looked like and I imagine how similar it’d be.

4. Girl in a Shiny Dress, NY, 1967

The girl isn’t quite bashful but she isn’t quite courageous either. From her posture to the look on her face and the way her dress hangs from her body, it all just feels so uncomfortable. Her smile is very put on but it’s as if she forgot to tell her eyes and the rest of her face to try and look happy as well. The flash really helps illuminate her dress to show the textures and they really are quite stunning. It’s hard to imagine her in any other state other than being frazzled the way she is.

5. Two Ladies at the Automat, NY, 1966

In addition to the freaks she regularly took photos of, there are a number of portraits Arbus took of aristocratic women, and sometimes men, of the time. Visually there is such a stark difference between two women like this and the Albino sword swallower, for example, but I believe Arbus found some similarities between the two social groups. In a quote Arbus says, “Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats." As for the actual photo’s aesthetic, again we can see the high contrast in the clothes between the two women, not just in tone but in pattern was well. Their expressions are what I can only describe as “blissful befuddlement”. With their sculpted or painted on eyebrows and their emotionless eyes, I can’t really tell what they are feeling and how they feel about their picture being taken. It has a remarkably eerie quality to it.

6. Lady Bartender at Home with a Souvenir Dog, New Orleans, 1964

This is one of the few photos of Arbus where it feels like genuine comedy with very little restlessness. Although she’s sitting slightly uncomfortably with her hand and a very odd position, the comparison of the toy dog and her hair is just too perfect. You can’t help but chuckle, even if only slightly, upon seeing it.

7. A castle in Disneyland, CA, 1962

If ever there was an artist that could make a Disneyland fairytale-esque castle appear to be something out of a Nosferatu, it would be Diane Arbus. The photo is genuinely creepy in all aspects. It feels like it’s towering over you, the light shining up on the towers, and the sense of some sort of fog surrounding the castle. The only thing that breaks that eeriness is the swan swimming through the mote. It changes the mood from flat-out creepy to something more serene, while still giving you a sense of being uncomfortable or perhaps even a slight sense of danger.

8. Female Impersonator in bed, NY, 1960

This was one of many transvestites, strippers, hermaphrodites, or any other adult performers. To me this photo is another great example of Arbus’ empathy. She isn’t trying to exploit this person but to share a small moment. There is nothing provocative or sensational about this photograph. To me she is just day dreaming and longing for something better. It feels like real innocence.

9. Three Puerto Rican Ladies, NY, 1963

Arbus took a lot of photos of people in groups of twos and threes, often times showcasing either the similarities or differences between them. This I find to be a medium between the two. Obviously their hair is the same and so are their scowls, but their age and dress differ quite a bit. They are all looking at Arbus as if she’s some car wreck they all just witnessed. The girl on the left seems like a teenager, the girl on the right seems to be in her twenties or so, and the woman in the middle seems to be about in her forties. Also, the items they are all carrying have very interesting qualities. Two binders, some books, a sports jacket, and a paper bag from what looks like could be from either a bookstore or a bakery.

10. 42nd Street Movie Theater Audience, NY, 1958

To end it I will talk about one of the most personal photographs to me. Few photos fill me with such elated joy as this one does. I have an incredibly romantic view of cinema, and this photograph gives me such a specific feeling. I feel sorry for anyone who looks at this photo and doesn’t get a sense of nostalgia and comfort, just thinking of the countless times going into a dark theater. It’s fantastic how the light from the projector just shoots through the frame with this overpowering beam, in this smoky, elegant theater.

0 notes