Many different American photographers' subject matter focuses on an idea of ‘Americanness’. However, some subvert this notion by focusing on the freakish, macabre, slightly disturbing nature of humanity, examples including Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin.
At the beginning of her essay exploring the nature of photography, Sontag remarks that photography was originally expected to be a tool to create idealised images, taking photos of beautiful things to create beautiful photographs. However, in Sontag’s opinion, this is superficial and irrelevant, it is arbitrary to treat some things in life as beautiful and some as ugly and then treat them as only that. Photography, Sontag argues, is a way to ‘confer importance’, and in American photography, anyone and anything can be beautiful and therefore important.
In the essay, she primarily focuses on the work of Diane Arbus, an American photographer who epitomised this type of photography: an artist who used traditionally ugly, eccentric, ‘freakish’ subjects to create beautiful, dignified images. She focuses on people who we may immediately define as ‘victims’ of society (a fully tattooed man, drag queens, nudists), awarding them dignity, a way to be seen on a level with the people living traditionally ‘correct’ ways of life. Sontag argues that Arbus’ photography creates a sense of beauty and importance through the steely, calm stature and facial expressions of the subjects themselves.
Photography of societal outcasts has often been centred around a voyeuristic methodology by which a photographer would attempt to catch their ‘freak’ unawares to capture an anthropological photograph of the subject, almost like they’re an animal. However, in Arbus’ work, the subjects are acutely aware of their position, so the portraits captured are contemplative and thoughtful.
While this may seem to be an ethical way to photograph this subject matter, Sontag also writes that it appeals to America’s fascination with the macabre. Arbus’ work makes us wonder if the subjects know just how grotesque and bizarre they appear, and the everyday, traditional American may instead feel sympathy rather than respect.
Arbus photographs the unknown, those on the fringe of society who the average American may encounter day to day but would never interact with. Therefore, the photographs of Arbus create a personalised account of the lives of those on the fringe of society, providing a way for the viewer to interact with and understand them.
Nan Goldin is another American photographer whose series ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’ focused on the lives of ‘others’ in society. However, in contrast to Arbus, Goldin’s photographs demonstrate a far more personal and familial tone, photographing her friends in their day to day lives. While Arbus created a steely, almost cold world for her subjects to exist within, Arbus photographs in highly saturated colour, creating a unique lens through which to observe and beautify the true nature of Goldin’s life. Goldin does not try to normalise her and her friend’s worlds because she sees them as entirely normal, and this is key to the tone created by this work.
As Sontag writes, American photography should embody the ‘inclusiveness and vitality of actual American experience’, and Goldin’s photographs do this by entirely accepting the nature of the subjects as ordinary. There is no need to separate or ‘other’ these subjects as they embody the eclectic, bizarre nature of Americanness, viewing an odd, possibly ‘freakish’ subject matter as beautiful and worthy of the importance that photography can bestow upon them.