Colin Woods, by Diane Arbus. via B.

She likely recognized this conflict in me as her own and with this pic unconsciously captured both the shallow-boiling anger and malice within me as well as a kindred, violent alienation within herself. I was her mirror.

— Colin Wood)

It is very easy to get into the habit of thinking of the subject of a straight photograph as belonging to the everyday world, which is lifted out of that world and loaded with a serving of meaning and interpretation provided by the photographer. It’s also easy to think of the camera’s lens as a glass wall which separates the photographer from the world and gives him or her a one-way privilege of judgment.

The comment at Blake Andrews’s blog from this subject of Arbus’s undermines both of these illusions in a wonderful way.