Diane Arbus was an American photographer known for her portraits of marginalized groups. She was born into a wealthy family but felt alienated as a child. Arbus began a fashion photography business but became interested in photographing outsider groups. Her black and white square format portraits of "freaks, transvestites and nudists" were often dismissed as voyeuristic. Arbus was fascinated by questions of identity and sought to depict society's "pathetic, heroic, frightening, hilarious, all-too-human inhabitants." Later in her career, photographing subjects with mental disabilities left her feeling drained, and she questioned whether her work still mattered to her.