Quite literally, this book made me want to be a photographer.

I remember seeing this book at my aunt and uncle's house when I was quite young (maybe 5 or 6). Flipping its pages as an adult is quite an experience, but as a child I was equal parts totally enthralled, disturbed, confused and yet completely smitten. I remember becoming quite familiar with the book's many characters, and always looked at this book when I visited their house.

When I started experimenting in photography in my mid-teens, I became re-aquainted with it from visiting bookstores and libraries, and through art history courses.

Her images I think speak more about who she is than who her subjects are, but in a way that is brutally revealing. On the surface, these photographs represent a cross-section of fringe society, with all of its inherant complexity and grit. Cross dressers, midgets, nudists, drug addicts, "dancers" and the like. But they become quite revealing about her psyche during the period she was creating this amazing body of work.
She approaches each subject not at a distance, but with the sensitivity and affection of someone who really cares and is invested in these relationships. She lived with a few of these people, hung out with many others...it was the kind of company she prefered, even after being raised in a very wealthy Jewish family who owned a department store.
The images are confrontational, sensational, unnerving, and a little disturbing. And some have really become icons of modern photography (the boy holding the grenade, the triplets on their bed, and many more).

But what really affected me the most was the exerps collected posthumously in the beginning of the book, in which Arbus describes her method and some of the mantras of her craft. There are so many powerful statements in this preface, all of which further support the understanding of her importance in the medium. Two of her most powerful statements:

"You don't put into a photograph what's going to come out. Or vice versa, what comes out is not what you put in. I have never taken a picture I've intended. They're always better or worse."

"I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them."

These statements really speak volumes about the responsibilty of an artist, and how everybody has a different slant about what's in front of them. Her words occasionally provide fuel for me to take initiative in my own work and take more risks and less excuses.

Definately of of the finest groups of photographs in modern art history. Hugely influential and succesful, and totally unequalled in its genre (except maybe by Nan Goldin).

This collection of 81 black and white photographs by Diane Arbus was edited and designed by her daughter, Doon and friend Marvin Israel and published in 1972 after her suicide the previous year. The photographs are preceeded by text of tape recordings of classes that the photographer gave the year she died, as well as excerpts from interviews and some of her own writings on photography. The text illuminates Arbus' concerns about her art and her subjects. Although she did do studies of objects, such as Disneyland, a hotel lobby, and a Xmas tree, Arbus was more interested in people, in particular the kind of people she had never seen before. Coming from a wealthy Park Avenue background, existing in an unreal environment, cocooned from adversity, Arbus felt her immunity painful, which explains her attraction to marginalised groups. One can compare Arbus' studies to those of Robert Mapplethorpe. Mapplethorpe moved from harsh presentations of marginalised gay men's sexuality to soft focus celebrity portraiture. Arbus moved in the opposite direction, from glamour fashion photography with her then husband Alan, to her reality marginalised portraiture. Arbus' experience with fashion provides her composition and while her camera can scrutinise, her photos never patronise. Perhaps this is due to the complicitity apparent from the subjects. These people want to be photographed, and Arbus presents them with dignity. But what makes them compelling is the what Arbus described as the gap between intention and effect, what you want people to know about you and what you can't help people knowing about you. Sometimes, often the thing we see is sadness, but we can't laugh at these people because they are so unguarded. Arbus' photos aren't posed. She tells us how she arranged her view rather than arranging her subject, so that they are planned observations. The photographs here taken between 1962 and 1970 cover the range of her interest in marginalised subjects including the freaks she classified as "aristocrats" who were born with their trauma so had passed their test in life, and made her feel a mix of shame and awe. Midgets, dwarfs, nudists, transvestites, identical twins and triplets, a giant with his parents, musclemen, carnival performers, a woman with her baby monkey, and the untitled retards. This is the world Arbus entered into. It's hard not to consider her suicide as being related to the subjects of her work. Arbus was interested in exposing the flaw, and her camera gave her licence to privacy, however the cold scrutiny of her camera may have been too much when it was focused upon herself. The self portraits I have seen show her looking uncomfortable, the photographer clearly lacking the skills she would apply to her own subjects. There is a rumour that Arbus set up a camera to photograph her own death, mentioned in the Patricia Bosworth biography, though no evidence was found when her body was discovered. Like the great ones, Arbus received acclaim posthumously, and this book is an ode to her genius.

DIANE ARBÚS ES UNA DE LAS FOTÓGRAFAS MEJORES DEL PANORAMA SOCIAL AMERICANO. SE MANTIENE APARTADA DE LA COMPASIÓN QUE DEBERÍA APORTAR A SUS SUJETOS. SU MIRADA ES FRÍA Y DISTANCIADA. SE ALEJA DEL DOLOR Y EL REPOSO DE SUS SUJETOS HACEN EL RESTO.

PARA MI UNA FENÓMANA

Every child in these pictures asks questions. Why don't I have a home? Why do I live in a car? In this camp? Why is my mother crying? Why is everything broken? Why is the refrigerator empty? Why do I need help breathing? Why is the air so bad? Why did I die before I could grow up? Why am I in a coffin? Why are there so many coffins? Why must I be a prostitute? Who are these people who come to me? Who keeps the money? Who eats the vegetables I pick? Why do the chemicals make me sick? Who makes the money? Why is the only place I have to live in this sewer? Why do they rape me? Why do people think I'm bad because I sniff glue? Why do I have to work instead of going to school? Why did the soldiers try to kill me? Will my mother still love me even though I lost a hand? An eye? Why do I feel so good when I have this gun? Who paid for the gun? Who will I kill? Why ....?

Stan Grossfeld has mercy on us. The last two pages offer us ways to help these kids.

Read it. Meditate on it. Weep. Act.

I must first begin with admitting that I have not read this book, yet I still believe that my thoughts are applicable. Over the summer of 1998 I was introduced to Mr. Grossfelds work in the form of a lecture/slide show. He revieled much of the content of the book and explained his views on the subjects at hand. After the show by instict all I could do was sit alone and question my life, my social awareness and action, and appreciate what a wonderful life I was born into.

The photographs of this book document the aspects of our world of which we are less proud. During times where we are advancing phenominally, these problems can not be ignored. The making of this book is one important step to recognizing and addressing these issues. I urge anyone with any hint of social awareness, any hint of compassion, to purchase this book. The profits contribute to worthy fondations which give direct aid and make direct changes in the lives of those who are less fortunate.

If you read this book, it will change you forever. This isStan's best book to date.

This book, and the equally wonderful FENWAY SAVED, are both perfect gift books for Boston fans and baseball lovers everywhere. Many people come to Boston and one of the first places they go is Fenway Park. It's the oldest park around and, like Wrigley Field in Chicago, it's the REAL THING! Almost unbelievably, the Red Sox plan to knock it down but they say they will be keeping parts of it as a memory.

What's the difference between the two books? FENWAY shows you the whole experience of going to a baseball game at Fenway Park, from the vendors to the fans and the game. The authors had access and got inside the wall and into the dressing room to take shots. They have more big name celebrities giving quotes. FENWAY SAVED, the other gift book, focuses more on the park itself is maybe a more serious one in that it provides more information and perspective and maybe a few more interesting stories along with a roughly equal number of excellent (but a bit less consistently so) photos. The better text balances out the slightly weaker photography. Don't get me wrong, though - the photography is very strong overall.

I give both books a full 5 stars. FENWAY SAVED costs five cents less.

As the old addage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. For fans of baseball, there are a select few "classic" parks left that allow that saying to come to light. Yankee Stadium, replete with all of her splendor and majesty; "The Friendly Confines" of Wrigley Field, her bleacher bums, and the ivy; and, greatest of them all, Fenway Park, the oldest park in the majors left standing.

When one sees Fenway park for the first time, one is immediately taken with the GREEN that the park exudes- the well kept grass, the Green Monster, the green bleacher seats, the green of the luxury and broadcast seats behind home plate. One will also be drenched in the history of this grand park- Pesky's Pole, left field (where several of the greatest players of that position donned Red Sox uniforms from Duffy Lewis to Teddy Ballgame to Yaz, and Rice), the left field pole, where Carlton Fisk hit his miraculous home run in '75; the manually operated left field wall scoreboard, complete with the morse code on it stating then-owner Tom Yawkey's name... Fenway Park is a living, breathing archaelogical site.

Famed Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy takes the reader of this book to each part of Fenway Park with remarkably clear and bright pictures, as well as choice anecdotes from former Sox greats like Ted Williams, Yaz, and the Eck, to other notables such as Jim Palmer, Stephen King, and Bob Costas.

It is the pictures, though, that dominate this great book, and what pictures they are. Focusing mainly on the fans, filled with joy, hope, anticipation, concern, angst, (and a Yankee fan giving us the middle finger) the book captures well what it is to be part of Red Sox Nation on any given day at the park. Add to it photos from outside the park on Yawkey Way, filled with vendors, street musicians, scalpers, etc..and those of the Sox themselves, and this book well encompasses a day at Fenway. The old photos of Williams, Ruth, the Royal Rooters, and "Honey Fitz" throwing the 1st pitch as opening day 1912, remind us to Fenway's rich and storied history, as well.

With the future of Fenway Park well in the balance, this book is all the more poignant and worth sitting down and studying. Whether you believe in "progress" or in saving Fenway Park,(I am among the latter) Shaughnessy's book offers the perfect snapshots to either remember Fenway by or to use in your arguments for saving her. Whatever may happen, Fenway Park is an American landmark, and "Fenway" helps to capture her in all her dignity.

As author David Halberstam said: "You go to Fenway and you think, 'Something wonderful's going to happen today.'"

Finally there is a book that captures the spirit of Fenway Park, the oldest and greatest of baseball shrines. This book has stunning and beautifully reproduced photographs and a moving and entertaining text that is better than going to a ballgame. Plus it has Ted Williams definitive word on the ballpark. This joyous book is not just a hit, it's an over the Wall, onto the Pike, Grand Slammer. Thanks to the great Shaugnessy, Grossfeld and The Kid.

I bought this book for my son and was quite surprised to discover that some of the pictures were inappropriate for an eleven-year old. I'm hardly a prude but I can't understand why a book on this topic would include sexist, suggestive photographs of female fans. I try to teach my son not to view women as sex objects but a handful of pictures in this book have little to do with baseball or spring training and do just that. Shame on the authors, who should know better.

This is the kind of book a woman like my wife buys for a guy like me because I like baseball so she thought I'd like it. It's okay, full of pretty pictures that [take up] a couple of hours, but there's not much too it. I'd rather be at spring training than read about it. I also think she thought that since it was by Shaughnessy the book would be about the Red Sox, but it's not. Oh well.

From the minute you open the book, you are not bombarded with a bunch of "pretty pictures," but are brought into a breathtaking and exciting world that we know as baseball. Shaughnessy and Grossfeld show us that baseball is not only about the Red Sox, but it is about the game itself, something that shocked me at first, but then prevented me from putting the book down. The amalgamation of Shaughnessy's writing and the captivating pictures that Grossfeld added make the book amazing. Why spend the money to go to spring training, when you can just pick up the book, and go there for free?