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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