I had the chance in August to see one of the best collections of photographs I have ever seen in a public setting.

The display of 454 Diane Arbus prints was appropriately titled “Constellation.” The show, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, drew me in and immersed me in a world that I would not normally enter on my own. While I have long known Arbus’s work, I have usually found her portraits unsettling enough that I would avoid diving too deep along with her. “Constellation” however, seemed required viewing.

Most of the photographs on display were printed by Neil Selkirk, who was a student of Arbus and the only person authorized by her estate to print her work from her negatives.

I was reminded that Arbus’s career was touched and guided by her experience with some of the most well known photographers of the last century, including; Berenice Abbott and Lisette Model.

If you are unfamiliar, Arbus is best known for her close-up, intimate portraits of people considered to be living at the edge of American society. Subjects that would not usually be considered photogenic. Her images are black and white and printed in a square format.

At the Armory, Arbus’s photographs were mounted on steel frames in a large room with a mirrored wall on one end. The display created the illusion of an un-ending forest of photos extending the length of a football field. It was overwhelming at first. It took more than an hour to pass through the entire exhibit.

Coming out the other end I found myself more comfortable with Arbus’s work and with a better understanding of what she was trying to accomplish. Some of her most widely known portraits are among the most unsettling. Combined with hundreds of similar images, previously unpublished, the message of human dignity for all was clear to me.

“We are all just people,” I found myself saying as I moved from image to image and back again. Observation without judgement.