Diane Arbus and Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss
Nina, 2005

The artist that I am comparing to Zoe is Diane Arbus. Both of them are contemporary artists. Although many people think the two artists are very similar, I find them very different.

Arbus tends to do a lot of series. She takes a lot of pictures that are in the same environment, like the nudist camps and the siamese twins. Zoe seems to take random pictures of things. I don't think she keeps with the same topic over and over again. Another think I think makes the two different is that in most of Zoe's pictures there is a personal relationship. She's in her neighborhood in her city. She has some sort of connection to the subjects. Diane Arbus goes all over to take her pictures. She doesn't just go to her neighborhood or stay in her city.

I picked Diane Arbus' picture Transvestite with Torn Stocking and Zoe's picture Nina. I liked both photos because of the facial expressions that both men have on their faces. From an objective point of view, both artists had the same sort of content in their photos. Another thing is that both of these photos are representational - anyone who looked at these photos would know what they are looking at. I think these two pictures are different because Diane Arbus uses a background. In her photo, you can clearly see that the man is sitting on the bed, but in Zoe's picture the background is out of focus so that you can't really see where he is.

As you can see, Diane Arbus and Zoe are completely different in their demeanors for their pictures, but the way they take the pictures is similar.