The Portrait of Marlyn Monroe By Richard Avedon - Diane Arbus Double self portrait

There reasons why chose a Marilyn Monroe portrait by Richard Avedon, the first thing is Marilyn Monroe is a huge phenomena, everyone all around the world whenever her named called or heard always some ideas or thoughts come to minds. For me whenever I heard or called her name the brilliance, beauty and intelligence come to my mind and the other reason why I chose this portrait is Marilyn Monroe has portarits or photos that always symbolize her happiness, beauty or her wealth sometimes with the her diamonds and beautiful furs or sometimes with the photos of her with wealthy or famous people. However, this time when I saw Marilyn from the Richard Avedon's perspective, it made me understood that behind the perfect look of hers there is a woman who tried hard to achieve her success and fame, a woman who blinded herself to all bad and graceless things and devoted herself to be rich, famous and beloved, and a woman who tries to say that 'Although I gained a huge success, there are still something missing such as love and a real happiness or maybe a good reputation.' in a sad mood of whispering. When these ideas came up to my mind, I understood that I think Richard Avedon is like a real and more successful photographer than Andy Warhol. Because Warhol always photographed the beauty just like we can see when we take a look at a photograph. Warhol's works are just like evidences of beauty without a story or a background, and for describing beauty photos are needless tales, stories or experiences are enough just like the beauty of Cleopatra we all know things about her eventhough we don't have any visual aids. However, from Avedon's perspective we see the story or feelings beyond beauty because beauty is the easiest thing to be photographed. Beauty is beauty, but showing the secrets and telling the stories of that beauty is an art.

I chose this photo of Diane Arbus to narrate and analyze because firstly the way she looks at the world and the models that she chooses to photograph are amazingly interesting. She took the photographs of travesties, dwarfs, giants, prostitutes or ordinary working class in unconventional poses and settings. But here in this double portrait she photographed herself. Almost in every photos that she took, there is always a dilemma, extreme points or unconventional weird things, like dilemma in sex choosing to be a man or a woman or extreme points like dwarfs and giants or unconventional sides of the working class which is expected to be ordinary, regular and normal. This perspective of hers brought the idea of the way how she thinks and looks at the world to my mind. Totally different that what the ordinary people think we all in the knowledge of  existence of these people, but none of us came up with idea of experiencing and examining by taking their photos.I think this perspective is the thing that people makes an artist. Anyway in this photo she chose to took her photo with a baby, I don't know if it is her baby or not but either way the message that she wants to give to the people is the same 'CONFUSION'. Confusion is a feeling that shows the phase of the emotion, just in the middle of the two sides. The left portrait in this photo she is holding a baby like a new mother, and her face expression tells me that 'Although I love my baby, I don't know what to do I am still young and have a life to live on my own. Am I ready for this baby?' this side of the photo shows her feelings to the baby she loves him she wants to hold it forever but still have thoughts. And on the right portrait I see a more determined woman who has her baby but also a woman knows what to do. She knows that she is not ready for this baby she loves him but she knows that she has a life and things to do so she may leave her baby behind and keep living her life. The way she is holding the baby tells me that she doesn't want that baby and the pose of her tells me that she is determined because her feet located on the floor stronger. There might be millions comments on this photo but it is the way I got it.