Thursday, April 10, 2014

On Photography by Susan Sontag



   Susan Sontag explored the effect photography has on society and her own ideas about photography. Society currently has many images vying for its attention. The evolution of photography has made it possible for anyone to record a moment in time the way they see it and then broadcast it quickly and easily. According to Sontag photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have the right to observe. Almost anything from a meal to our pets is photographed, posted, and found interesting now. Photographs give us a window to different places and times and allow us to hold the world in our heads.
   Photography is a cheap, easy, and portable way to explore times and places we otherwise may have only a verbal description of. I have never been to Australia or Africa and a website or person who has been there could describe it to me, but I would have a much smaller understanding of the area if it were not for pictures. Pictures give us a clear understanding of a place we may never be able to see ourselves, capture the experience of that place, and present it to us in a way that we can also try to experience it.
   Photos also hold knowledge of a separate place and therefore power. Photos have the power to incriminate, or justify. Photos can be seen as miniatures of reality seen through someone else’s’ eyes. They are a “generic exception between art and truth,” according to Sontag. Photos reflect someone else’s ideas and reality. Through deciding how photos should look the photographer is imposing their own standards on the subjects and forcing the viewer to see it their way as well. A photo captures as well as interprets reality.

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