As photographers we can often get obsessed with “the look” of our photographs. We experiment with different focal lengths, shooting at different apertures, using a flash or natural light, color vs black and white, formats, and so forth. However rather than just experimenting for the aesthetic quality, Arbus feels that using different techniques should be for adding meaning.
Arbus shares her experiences in trying to create textures in her image to convey more meaning, rather than just being textured for the sake of being textured:
“In the beginning of photographing I used to make very grainy things. I’d be fascinated by what the grain did because it would make a kind of tapestry of all these little dots and everything would be translated into this medium of dots. Skin would be the same as water would be the same as sky and you were dealing mostly in dark and light, not so much in flesh and blood.
But when I’d been working for a while with all these dots, I suddenly wanted terribly to get through there. I wanted to see the real differences between things.
I’m not talking about textures. I really hate that, the idea that a picture can be interesting simply because it shows texture. I mean that just kills me I don’t see whats interesting about texture. It really bores the hell out of me.
But I wanted to show the difference between flesh and material, the densities of different kinds of things air and water and shiny. So I gradually had to learn different techniques to make it come clear. I began to get terribly hyped on clarity.”
For Arbus’ earlier work she started with a Nikon 35mm camera, but in order to better achieve her creative vision she switched to a TLR Rolleiflex – in which she worked the square format and achieved extra detail in switching from small to medium-format.
Arbus also worked quite a bit with flash, which brought out more textures and light in her photographs. Many of her photographs taken during the day (such as the photograph of the woman with the veil above) show that she balanced the fill flash and the background light – creating a quite surreal effect. Not only that, but it better brought out the texture in the woman’s face, the fabric of the veil, and of her light-colored hair and fur coat.