Who is Diane Arbus from On Photography and what is their importance?

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) was an American photographer who took portraiture of people on the fringes of society such as transvestites, nudists, prostitutes, and the physically deformed. In addition, she occasionally photographed "normal" people in poses and settings which caused them to appear as what Sontag refers to as "freaks". Arbus and her photographs are the dominant topic of chapter two of the text, though she is introduced rather late in the chapter. Sontag asserts that Arbus's single-minded pursuit of a single type of photograph allowed her to demonstrate that all humans are part of a global family—in essence, Arbus demonstrated what Whitman proposed, though via a different mechanism than Whitman envisioned.