[1] Over six weeks in 1948, she learned photographic skills from Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research[4] in Manhattan.

Studying photography under Brodovitch, she produced a collection of photos from Harlem's vivid fashion show scene.

[5] Although the series launched her career, she later wrote in a diary entry that the editor of the magazine changed her captions and reversed the message of her photographs to fit a racist narrative.

Arnold spent time covering Republican Party press events, the McCarthy hearings, and explored the subject of birth which was taboo.

Arnold explored these ideas about women in her full length photo book The Unretouched Woman which was published in 1976.

The intimate candid-style photos achieve Arnold's goal to show Monroe's anxieties about being the subject of constant media attention.

Travel characterized much of Arnold's work, as she took interest in photographing the Civil rights and Black power movements in the United States as well as in the rigid Soviet Union and in China.

Arnold always strived to go deeper with her photography; she even returned from some shoots with cigarette burns on her clothing from a disapproving crowd.

[6] Her interest in "the poor, the old, the underdog" continued as her photos captured the gentle realness that Arnold portrays as characteristic of all humans.

She sums up "curiosity" as a one-word description of her driving force that led to her career of which was described as a friend as "a one-woman cultural exchange".