Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Diane Arbus made portraits of people living in and around New York City, developing a recognizably blunt style in which she closely scrutinized her subjects while maintaining a personal distance. Although best known for photographing those on the margins of society, she also photographed adolescents on the streets, middle-class families, and the social elite. By picturing such a wide range of people, Arbus portrayed the seemingly strange or flawed as common and familiar—and vice versa, as in this photograph of two young women in matching, striped swimsuits.