Assignment 006: Susan Sontag

Bio: Susan Sontag was born in New York City in 1933.  She traveled a great deal throughout her life for studies, but eventually ended up back in NYC where she passed away in 2004 due to a a blood related medical condition.  Sontag was an author, feminist and political activist, and literary theorist.  She was open about her bisexuality and was rumored to have been in a committed relationship with famous photographer, Annie Leibovitz.

Review:

“Photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe.” –Sontag

I found Sontag’s first chapter of “On Photography” to be very interesting, and rather poetic.  She used great metaphors and brought up a lot of points about photography in general that I have never thought of before.  For the large majority of the article I would have to say that I strongly agree with her views.  I have always believed that photography is complex, and Sontag compares it to a new language.  She says that photography creates a new language for it’s viewers and actually creates its own world by piecing together bits of our real world.   While in today’s world it seems that many people take a film or something on television to be a more reliable account of an event, Sontag says the polar opposite.  She believes that with the hundreds of thousands of images pieced together to create a film or something on television, that each image actually deletes the last.  By doing so, our mind cannot individually relate to images and thus losing the meaning behind it.  A photograph stands alone, and stands strong.  Even if a single photograph is not necessarily a work of art, the lone image will hold something that is unique to it and unique to what it means in our mind. A photograph holds undeniable evidence that in the past a painting, or possibly a written account could not hold.  Whether it is for criminal purposes or family purposes, a photographer is a moment frozen in time. 

“Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are”

-Sontag

Photography has become a part of our culture and our everyday life.  The idea of family relies heavily on photography.  While I had never connected the two together, it is blatantly obvious this is true.  The perfect wedding picture seems just as important as the actual event.  A graduation picture with your entire family, a picture from your family vacation, or pictures of your newborn baby are all huge parts of today’s culture.  Photographs will outlast our memories, and will often time outlast us.

“The Polaroid owner for whom photographs are a handy, fast form of note-taking, or the shutterbug with a Brownie who takes snapshots as souvenirs of daily life.”

 -Sontag

Probably the only part of Sontag’s writing that I disagree with is her connection between a photographer and their camera being a sexual one.  While there is undoubtedly an indescribable bond here, I would not say it is a sexual one.  I think that Sontag has confused passion for sex and I think there is a huge difference.

“Like guns and cars, cameras are fantasy machines whose use is addictive.”

 - Sontag