欧宝娱乐

Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

丿乇亘丕乇賴 毓讴丕爻蹖

Rate this book
丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 丿乇 賴賮鬲 亘禺卮: 蹖丕丿丿丕卮鬲 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 - 丿乇 睾丕乇 丕賮賱丕胤賵賳 - 丌賲乇蹖讴丕貙 趩賳丕賳 讴賴 丕夭 賲蹖丕賳 毓讴爻鈥屬囏� 丿蹖丿賴 賲蹖鈥屫促堌� 亘賴 鬲蹖乇诏蹖 - 丕卮蹖丕亍 賲丕賱蹖禺賵賱蹖丕蹖蹖 - 賵噩賴 賯賴乇賲丕賳蹖 丿蹖丿賳 - 丕賳噩蹖賱鈥屬囏й� 毓讴丕爻蹖 - 噩賴丕賳 鬲氐賵蹖乇 - 诏夭蹖丿賴贁 賲禺鬲氐乇蹖 丕夭 賳賯賱 賯賵賱鈥屬囏� - 倬蹖賵爻鬲: 鬲丕賲賱丕鬲蹖 丿乇亘丕乇賴贁 賲丕賴蹖鬲 鬲丕乇蹖禺蹖 鬲氐賵蹖乇 賮賵鬲賵 诏乇丕賮蹖讴 (賲噩蹖丿 丕禺诏乇)
爻賵賳鬲丕诏 丿乇 賲賯丿賲賴 讴鬲丕亘 賳賵卮鬲賴 丕爻鬲: 芦賴賲賴 趩蹖夭 丕夭 蹖讴 賲賯丕賱賴 卮乇賵毓 卮丿 鈥� 丿乇亘丕乇賴贁 亘乇禺蹖 丕夭 賲爻丕卅賱 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖鈥屫促嗀ж� 賵 丕禺賱丕賯蹖鈥屫й� 讴賴 亘賴 毓賱鬲 丨囟賵乇 賴賲賴 噩丕蹖蹖 鬲氐丕賵蹖乇 毓讴丕爻蹖 胤乇丨 诏卮鬲賴鈥屫з嗀� 丕賲丕 賴乇 趩賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 丿乇 賲賵乇丿 趩蹖爻鬲蹖 毓讴爻鈥屬囏� 丕賳丿蹖卮蹖丿賲貙 丌賳鈥屬囏� 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴鈥屫� 卮丿賴 賵 賵噩賴 丿賱丕賱鬲 賲賳丿鬲乇蹖 亘賴 禺賵丿 诏乇賮鬲賳丿. 亘賴 丕蹖賳 鬲乇鬲蹖亘 亘賵丿 讴賴 蹖讴 賲賯丕賱賴貙 賲賯丕賱賴 丿蹖诏乇 乇丕 賲賵噩亘 卮丿 賵 (亘丕 讴賲丕賱 丨蹖乇鬲 賲賳) 丌賳 賲賯丕賱賴 蹖讴蹖 丿蹖诏乇 乇丕貙 賵 丕賱蹖 丌禺乇...禄
丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 賲賳鬲賯丿丕賳 賵 賳卮乇蹖丕鬲 賲毓鬲亘乇 趩賳蹖賳 鬲賵氐蹖賮 讴乇丿賴鈥屫з嗀�

賳蹖賵蹖賵乇讴 鬲丕蹖賲夭: 賴乇氐賮丨賴鈥屫й� 丕夭 讴鬲丕亘 丿乇亘丕乇賴 毓讴丕爻蹖 侔 倬乇爻卮鈥屬囏й� 噩匕丕亘 賵 倬乇 丕賴賲蹖鬲蹖 乇丕 丿乇 夭賲蹖賳賴 賲賵囟賵毓 禺賵丿 亘賴 亘賴鬲乇蹖賳 賳丨賵 倬蹖卮 賲蹖鈥屭┴簇�

讴賱賵蹖賳 鬲乇蹖賱蹖賳貨 賳蹖賵蹖賵乇讴乇: 亘賴 賳馗乇 賲賳 侔 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 侔 丕氐蹖賱鈥屫臂屬� 賵 乇賵卮賳诏乇鈥屫臂屬� 賲胤丕賱毓賴 丿乇 丨賵夭賴 毓讴丕爻蹖 亘賴 卮賲丕乇 賲蹖鈥屫③屫�

噩丕賳 亘乇噩夭: 賴乇 鬲丨賱蹖賱蹖 讴賴 亘毓丿鈥屬囏� 丿乇 夭賲蹖賳賴 賳賯卮 毓讴丕爻蹖 賵 鬲丕孬蹖乇 丌賳 丿乇 噩賵丕賲毓 乇爻丕賳賴鈥屫й� 賳賵卮鬲賴 卮丿貙 賲鬲讴蹖 亘乇 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 爻賵賳鬲丕诏 亘賵丿

賳蹖賵夭賵蹖讴: 亘毓丿 丕夭 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 爻賵賳鬲丕诏貙 丿蹖诏乇 丿乇 賳賵卮鬲賴貙 亘賴 毓讴丕爻蹖貙 賳賴 亘賴 毓賳賵丕賳 賯丿乇鬲蹖 丿乇 賲蹖丕賳 賴賳乇鈥屬囏ж� 讴賴 亘丕蹖丿 亘賴 毓賳賵丕賳 賳蹖乇賵蹖 賲丨乇讴蹖 賮夭丕蹖賳丿賴 丿乇 噩丕賲毓賴 噩賴丕賳蹖 倬乇丿丕禺鬲賴 卮賵丿.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

4007 people are currently reading
94836 people want to read

About the author

Susan Sontag

210books5,060followers
Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne鈥檚 College, Oxford.

Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.

Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.

Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.

A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers鈥� organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.

Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.

Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.

Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
20,418 (38%)
4 stars
16,408 (31%)
3 stars
9,161 (17%)
2 stars
3,446 (6%)
1 star
3,424 (6%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,629 reviews
Profile Image for Trevor.
1,470 reviews24k followers
September 29, 2014
This was terribly interesting, but I think you needed to know a little more than Sontag explained to understand where she is coming from in all this. The important thing to remember is that Plato wanted to banish the artists and he wanted to do this for a very good reason. To Plato the world we live in isn鈥檛 really the real world 鈥� the real world is a world we cannot have access to, the real world is where things never die, things remain the same and don鈥檛 change. Change and death, to Plato, are proof that the world we live in isn鈥檛 the real world. So, Plato saw the world we live in as a world of shadows, that is, one step away from reality. Art was therefore two steps away from reality and was therefore a copy of a copy. For Plato what we needed to do was get closer to reality, not further away from it. Therefore, he needed to banish artists from his ideal society as they move us away from reality towards images - that is more shadows.

So, for as long as we have had idealist philosophy we have had a problem between images, reality and how we can go about understanding the differences between the one and the other. This might sound like quite a trivial problem, but it is actually incredibly important. As Margaret Wertheim shows in her , how we have understood space has fundamentally changed how we have understood reality. Prior to the Renaissance space in artworks was depicted not to represent an 鈥榓ccurate鈥� picture of what people saw 鈥� but rather to show relative importance. So, God is huge and the angels are somewhat smaller and the king is smaller still, and the rest of us are tiny. The Renaissance developed perspective painting and with it helped to create the revolution in science that required a revolution in how we saw space, not as a frame for morality to be played out within, but as a plane for the unraveling of amoral and disinterested forces. As Sontag says in this work, 鈥淏ut the notions of image and reality are complementary. When the notion of reality changes, so does that of the image, and vice versa. 鈥� Page 125

In many ways Sontag wants to turn Plato on his head. Plato would have had serious problems with photography. His main problem would have been the seeming accuracy of photographs. As Sontag says, 鈥淧hotographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we鈥檙e shown a photograph of it.鈥� Page 3 Or perhaps more importantly, 鈥淧hotography is the reality; the real object is often experienced as a letdown. Photographs make normative an experience of art that is mediated, second-hand, intense in a different way.鈥� Page 115

She plays with this idea of photographs being more real than reality throughout the book. Hard to put this point more pointedly than when she says, 鈥淯ltimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it, and participating in public event comes more and more to be equivalent to looking at it in photographed form.鈥� Page 18 And breathtakingly, "It is common for people to insist about their experience of a violent event in which they were caught up鈥攁 plane crash, a shoot-out, a terrorist bombing鈥攖hat 'it seemed like a movie.'鈥� Page 126

Photography gets to be 鈥榚vidence鈥� because, 鈥淚n the fairy tale of photography the magic box insures varacity and banishes error, compensates for inexperience and rewards innocence.鈥� Page 41 The problem is that not only can photographs lie 鈥� something we still struggle to believe 鈥� but they lie on every level. They lie because they are a selective choice of what reality we intent to show. They lie because most photographs are anything but what people think they are 鈥� an accurate representation of what is photographed. This point needs a bit of explaining. Think about what happens to you when someone holds a camera up towards you. It is nearly impossible not to pose. But that means that what you get a photograph of isn鈥檛 really 鈥榶ou鈥�, but instead an image of you posing in front of a camera. As she points out, 鈥淭hat photographs are often praised for their candour, their honesty, indicates that most photographs, of course, are not candid.鈥� Page 66

We like to think that photographs explain the world to us and help us to understand it, but again she is savage in debunking this idea. 鈥淧hotography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks.鈥� Page 17 To really understand the world involves seeing the world as a process, in action, in time. But a camera 鈥� a still camera at least 鈥� cannot capture the process of life. The problem is that to understand a thing means, 鈥渦nderstanding 鈥� how it functions. And functioning takes place in time, and must be explained in time. Only that which narrates can make us understand.鈥� Page 18 However, the veracity of images gives them an authenticity that confuses and bewilders us. And this is where the caption comes in. We look at the image and we see time frozen. We see a captured instant in what, to be understood, needs to be a continuum. The 鈥榗ontext鈥� to understand this instant is added often by words, by language, by a caption. The relationship is a difficult one, but one that needs to be acknowledged: 鈥溾€橳his photograph, like any photograph,鈥� Godard and Gorin point out, 鈥榠s physically mute. It talks through the mouth of the text written beneath it.鈥� In fact, words do speak louder than pictures. Captions do tend to override the evidence of our eyes; but no caption can permanently restrict or secure a picture鈥檚 meaning.鈥� Page 84

And this brings us to what I think is the main point 鈥� and back to Plato again. For Plato 鈥榯he truth鈥� is what we need to spend a lifetime seeking, even if we are sure of only one thing 鈥� that we will never find that truth. The Greek word for truth is Aletheia. It means to uncover, unconceal. While Plato is seeking to get us to turn away from reality to see the reality beyond the apparent, photography also gets us to turn away from the real world, but as a way to get us to see the real world that is hidden in plane sight. Sontag again, 鈥淎ll that photography鈥檚 program of realism actually implies is the belief that reality is hidden. And, being hidden, is something to be unveiled.鈥� Page 94

A lot of this book concerns the relationship between painting and photography. Painting is clearly an art form 鈥� and not just for the snobbish reason that it has a history going back as far as people go back, but also because to paint is to interpret. To paint is to put something of yourself into a painting. But it is very hard for a photographer to be truly original in the way painters can be. And this makes sense of something she points out about paintings and photographs, 鈥淚t makes sense that a painting is signed but a photograph is not (or seems bad taste if it is). 鈥� Page 104 But also that, 鈥渢here is no internal evidence for identifying as the work of a single photographer鈥︹€� Page 105

Painting is also a high-art form. She makes the point that art is hard work, 鈥淐lassical modernist painting presupposes highly developed skills of looking, and a familiarity with other art and with certain notions about art history. 鈥� Page 102 But photography presents itself as realism 鈥� realism in the sense that all you need are a pair of eyes to understand what is being shown to you. Of course, this is anything but the case, but we will get to that in a second.

Photography isn鈥檛 so much interested in the beautiful, she says at one point, 鈥淚n photography鈥檚 early decades, photographs were expected to be idealised images. This is still the aim of most amateur photographers, for whom a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful, like a woman, a sunset.鈥� Page 22 Rather photography makes the mundane and even the ugly 鈥榖eautiful鈥� 鈥� beautiful in the sense that the very act of photographing it gives it an interest and fascination. Worse than this, not only have photographs turned everything into the potentially beautiful, but by presenting so many objects before us as objects of erotic or voyeuristic pleasure (I mean this in the broadest possible sense) photography is guilty of dulling our senses to the truly horrible. 鈥淢uch of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible.鈥� Page 32

But even this is only partly true. Sometimes the opposite is also the case. At one point she describes going to see an operation performed in a Chinese hospital 鈥� she observed this and although it sounds gruesome in all the ways we expect operations to be, she was able to watch the whole thing with more fascination than revulsion. But, amusingly enough, she wasn鈥檛 able watch a film made of nearly exactly the same thing. She explains this by saying, 鈥淥ne is vulnerable to disturbing events in the form of photographic images in a way that one is not to the real thing. That vulnerability is part of the distinctive passivity of someone who is a spectator twice over, spectator of events already shaped, first by the participants and second by the image maker.鈥� Page 132

The ideological role photography plays in a particular society depends on the nature of the guiding ideology of that society. She makes wonderful use of a few stories from China about what makes a good photograph. She discusses a series of photographs taken by a Western photographer that the Chinese protested against. These showed rather candid photographs of the Chinese going about their daily lives. The Chinese critic found that idea repulsive about the photographs. The people photographed had been violated because they had not been given the opportunity to present themselves to the camera. Also, the images focused on parts of objects and of people. This too was seen by the Chinese as disrespectful. The images the
Chinese government approved of were more likely to be of the 鈥楿nknown Citizen Lei Feng 鈥� someone too good to be true and therefore worthy of emulation. As Sontag says, 鈥淚n China, what makes an image true is that it is good for people to see it.鈥� Page 137 That is, not the images literal truth 鈥� which everyone probably knows is almost certainly staged - but rather the truth as it 鈥榦ught鈥� to be. Yet again, another hidden truth.

But if she is savage about Communist propaganda photography, she is hardly soft on Capitalist propaganda photography either. 鈥淎 capitalist society requires a culture based on images. It needs to furnish vast amounts of entertainment in order to stimulate buying and anesthetize the injuries of class, race, and sex. And it needs to gather unlimited amounts of information, the better to exploit natural resources, increase productivity, keep order, make war, give jobs to bureaucrats. The camera鈥檚 twin capacities, to subjectivize reality and to objectify it, ideally serve these needs and strengthen them. Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as a spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images. The freedom to consume a plurality of images and goods is equated with freedom itself. The narrowing of free political choice to free economic consumptions requires the unlimited production and consumption of images.鈥� Page 140

I am going to end with something 鈥� as someone who was born in Belfast 鈥� I found utterly fascinating. It is a quote she has at the end of the book 鈥� the last chapter is actually just a series of interesting quotes from famous people and ads about the nature of photography. The best of these is a quote from Kafka. But this quote from the New York Times literally stopped me: 鈥淭he people of Belfast are buying picture postcards of their city鈥檚 torment by the hundreds. The most popular shows a boy throwing a stone at a British armored car.鈥� Page 156 (from New York Times 29 Oct 1974)

I said before that Sontag doesn鈥檛 believe we can use photographs to understand 鈥� that photographs show the apparent, and to understand means to go beyond the appearance. But I think this quote on Belfast shows that photographs can help us to reach some kind of understanding. The people of Belfast in 1974 (with nearly 30 years of the Troubles ahead of them) were confronted by something that must have seemed completely alien to them 鈥� civil war in the streets of their home town. That is, they would have been confronted daily with the bizarre, surreal, unreality of what was a new reality forever ready to assert its own all-too-real-ness. How does one come to terms with this new 鈥榬eality鈥�? Photographs helped them to make sense of such a surreal world.

鈥淣eil Shawcross, a Belfast man, bought two complete sets of the cards, explaining, 鈥業 think they鈥檙e interesting mementoes of the times and I want my children to have them when they grow up.鈥欌€� Little did he know his children would have far more mementoes of those times in their own growing up.

This is a fascinating book and rightly a classic on photography.
Profile Image for Amari.
359 reviews82 followers
December 4, 2013
I found this book utterly maddening. I'm giving it four stars not for the content itself, but for the quality of thinking I did while reading.

I'm rather surprised not to have found any comments in other reviews regarding Sontag's horrific tactlessness in her discussions of "freaks" (in the context of Diane Arbus' work). Less shocking but also disappointing: her wholesale dismissal of the Surrealists, or as she calls them two or three times, the Surrealist "militants", which they decidedly were not.

Overall, I found the writing -- while at times illuminating -- overwhelmingly and groundlessly judgmental. Sontag's logic is often very, very dubious; she is as dangerous as Camus (I'm thinking of Le mythe de Sisyphe) when it comes to the seductiveness of fine, well-articulated prose which uses its own music to trick the reader into believing the message. Beware.
Profile Image for Maryana.
66 reviews205 followers
November 23, 2023
Susan Sontag鈥檚 On Photography left me horrified at the idea of photography and put me off using my camera ever again. And yet, I find it outstanding.

To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as the camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a sublimated murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.

On Photography is a set of essays on photography, society, history, politics, our relationship with the idea of the image and the potential 鈥渢ruth鈥� revealed in a photograph. Sontag does not praise photography, nor does she condemn it. With a critical eye, she manages to reveal it in a completely new light. Although some of her revelations may not be new or surprising in this day and age, there are many brilliant and thought-provoking ideas. What is the nature of photography? Is it art? What does it mean to take a photograph? What is the influence of the image on society?

The greatest consequence of photography is that it gives us the feeling of being able to store the whole world in our minds, as an anthology of images. Collecting photographs is to collect the world.

I believe this is not the best book on the history of photography let alone aesthetics of photography, yet Sontag looks back on the work of many photographers and the evolution of photography itself. Sontag reflects on the potentials and dangers of photography. Even in the 70s when this book was written, both the individual and society were already getting used to the idea of a photograph as a true image of reality, they found themselves living in a world of images.

I wonder what Sontag would say about our own photo obsessed, social-media saturated world.

Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.

Some of the ideas in On Photography resonated with other ideas in the books I was reading at the same time, which made this whole reading experience even more precious. Even though I would disagree with some of Sontag鈥檚 ideas, the author challenged my own idea of photography, its relationship with art, society and humanity. I wish she were here to write a set of essays On AI. Fascinating work.

40dd9c012c7f79fbf1184905c2799c47

My first film camera.
Profile Image for Maciek.
573 reviews3,753 followers
July 23, 2022
I've never read anything by Susan Sontag, but encountered mentions of her book On Photography numerous times in various contexts. It's hailed as "one of the most highly regarded books of its kind". I like taking photographs myself, and thought I would find it interesting.

Those seeking a well-constructed history of photography, its development and an introduction to various schools and movements of photography - as I did - are likely to be disappointed. On Photography has no central thesis, and is a collection of essays "about the meaning and career of photographs" as described by Sontag herself. This isn't a book on photography - it's a book on Susan Sontag.

Although she writes about a wealth of photographers, Sontag doesn't explore any of them in depth - she moves from one to another very quickly, and often they are reduced to backgrounds for her own thoughts and opinions on photographs, which often include comparisons and references to other media. This can make for some very dense reading - I thought that the book suffered painfully from a lack of a central thesis.

My biggest gripe with the book is that while by nature it has to be a polemic - it contains no bibliography or citations - Sontag constantly makes sweeping generalizations about both photography and photographers without offering any explanation. She presents her opinions as if they were facts, entirely without nuance, leaving no room for disagreement. To give her credit she has a multitude of opinions, and to praise or dismiss them all completely out of hand would be unfair, but many of her claims are very dubious: such as stating that tourists who enjoy taking snapshots of what they see do it because they know no other response, and for some it's the only way to appease their anxiety about not working (citation needed, unless we're going to stereotype whole nations).

There are other claims that Sontag makes, which do real harm to all the otherwise good ideas she might have presented as they howl at us straight from loon territory. Although Sontag writes that the camera doesn't rape, or even possess, there is nonetheless an aggression implicit in every use of the camera, as it may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate - all from a distance. And are you thinking dirty thoughts when you see a long-focus lens? Apparently you're not alone, and you're not even aware that you're doing it:

The camera as phallus is, at most, a flimsy variant of the inescapable metaphor that everyone unselfconsciously employs. However hazy our awareness of this fantasy, it is named without subtlety whenever we talk about 鈥渓oading鈥� and 鈥渁iming鈥� a camera, about 鈥渟hooting鈥� a film.

(We all know that phalluses shoot, but how does one load a phallus?)

Like guns and cars, cameras are fantasy-machines whose use is addictive. However, despite the extravagances of ordinary language and advertising, they are not lethal. In the hyperbole that markets cars like guns, there is at least this much truth: except in wartime, cars kill more people than guns do. The camera/gun does not kill, so the ominous metaphor seems to be all bluff鈥攍ike a man鈥檚 fantasy of having a gun, knife, or tool between his legs.

I don't know about others, but I never had a fantasy of having a gun or knife between my legs - I like what's there just fine the way it is! But it gets worse:

Still, there is something predatory in the act of taking a picture. To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as the camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a sublimated murder鈥攁 soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time.

Melodramatic writing like this strikes me as beyond silly; the idea that people might not only consent to be photographed but want to have their photograph taken and actively seek that opportunity is never considered. While it's a good paragraph from a literary perspective - cameras become guns, people are possessed by celluloid voodoo, and taking their photos is just a slightly better way of murdering them - it's the kind of writing that George Orwell famously described as being designed to "give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".

All these essays have been written in the 1970's, long before the advent of both the internet and digital photography - which has transformed the medium completely, as it's now surrounding us completely, included in everything that we do. What would Susan Sontag say about people chuckling at funny cat pictures? I'm afraid the thought didn't even cross her mind. The malicious motives that Susan Sontag gives to all photographers have been largely replaced with people sharing the joy of taking photographs with others: people take photographs of themselves and share them with each other, connecting in ways which were previously impossible. I've read that Susan Sontag later turned back from some of the views that she held while writing On Photography - it's a shame this self-dissent was not included.
Profile Image for Steven Godin.
2,749 reviews3,165 followers
September 12, 2024

The above six essays simply make up of the most highly regarded and thoroughly interesting books of its kind. I'm a big fan of Roland Barthes's 'Camera Lucida' (although about photography it's more a personal book dealing with the loss of his mother) and this was equally as good if not better.
Sontag raises important and exciting questions about photography and raises them in the most readable and thought-provoking way. I always have fears when approaching essays, like will they turn into a bore-feast or feel like a homework assignment, but no, there was never a dull moment, Sontag didn't make me feel like nodding off.


Photography, unlike painting, does not only address and represent its object and does not only resemble it; it is also a part of the object, its direct extension. Photography, according to Sontag, is a form of acquisition in a number of ways. When you photograph something, it becomes a part of certain knowledge system, adapted to schemas of classification and storage starting from family photographs up to police, political and scientific usage. Photography, in other words, is a form of supervision.

Throughout time reality has been related through countless images, and philosophers such as Plato have made efforts to diminish our reliance on representations by pointing at a direct way to grasp the real. Sontag quotes Feuerbach in saying that our age prefers the photograph to the real thing, the appearance before the experience. This argument, she points out, is widely accepted in modern culture which is constantly engaged with producing and consuming images to such a degree that photography has been made essential for the health of the economy and the stability of social structures. Photography, holds an almost unlimited authority in modern society. Such photographic images are capable of replacing reality by virtue of being not only a mirror or interpretation of in, but also a relic of reality, something that is taken straight from it. We seem to consume photographs at an ever increasing rate and they are therefore consumed and simply need to be replaced. Meaning, the more we take photographs the more we need to take photographs, and this accounts for what is known today as the pictorial turn.

I could rabble on for ages on this book, but will just say it's simply a brilliant and groundbreaking analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking at the world and at ourselves. I doubt I will read a better piece of writing on the subject.
Profile Image for Sawsan.
1,000 reviews
March 8, 2021
丕賱氐賵乇 噩夭亍 賲賳 丨賷丕鬲賳丕.. 匕賰乇賷丕鬲 賲乇卅賷丞 賳丨鬲賮馗 賮賷賴丕 亘賱丨馗丕鬲 賵兀卮禺丕氐 賵兀丨丿丕孬 賲乇鬲 亘賳丕
毓賱賶 丕賱賲爻鬲賵賶 丕賱毓丕賲 丕賱鬲氐賵賷乇 賷賰卮賮 丕賱賰孬賷乇 毓賳 丕賱賲噩鬲賲毓 賵丕賱爻賷丕爻丞 賵丕賱鬲丕乇賷禺, 賷賳賯賱 賱賳丕 丕賱毓丕賱賲 賵賷賯乇亘 丕賱兀丨丿丕孬
丕賱氐賵乇丞 噩夭亍 賲賳 丕賱賲毓乇賮丞.. 毓賳丿賲丕 賳爻賲毓 兀賵 賳賯乇兀 毓賳 卮賷亍 賳鬲兀賰丿 賲賳賴 兀賰孬乇 丨賷賳 賳乇賶 丕賱氐賵乇丞
丕賱賰丕鬲亘丞 爻賵夭丕賳 爻賵賳鬲丕噩 賱丕 鬲購丿賷賳 丕賱鬲氐賵賷乇 丕賱賮賵鬲賵睾乇丕賮賷 兀賵 鬲賯賱賱 賲賳 兀賴賲賷鬲賴
賱賰賳賴丕 鬲賳賯丿 亘毓囟 賲爻丕賵卅賴 賵爻賱亘賷丕鬲賴 賵鬲賰卮賮 毓賳 丕賱鬲睾賷乇丕鬲 丕賱鬲賷 兀丨丿孬賴丕 賮賷 丕賱毓丕賱賲 賵胤乇賷賯丞 乇丐賷鬲賳丕 賱賱兀丨丿丕孬
鬲毓乇囟 丕賱毓賱丕賯丞 亘賷賳 丕賱氐賵乇丞 賵丕賱賵丕賯毓, 賴賱 丕賱氐賵乇 丿丕卅賲丕 氐丕丿賯丞 賵鬲賳賯賱 丕賱賵丕賯毓 賮毓賱丕責
兀賲 兀賳 丕爻鬲禺丿丕賲 丕賱氐賵乇 賮賷 賵爻丕卅賱 丕賱廿毓賱丕賲 賷禺丿賲 兀賴丿丕賮 賵賲氐丕賱丨 賲毓賷賳丞 爻賷丕爻賷丞 兀賵 孬賯丕賮賷丞 兀賵 丿賷賳賷丞 ... 賵睾賷乇賴丕
毓乇囟鬲 賲乇丕丨賱 丕賱鬲氐賵賷乇 丕賱賮賵鬲賵睾乇丕賮賷 賵賲賳丕賴噩賴 丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮丞 賵賰鬲亘鬲 毓賳 鬲噩乇亘丞 丕賱賮賵鬲賵睾乇丕賮 賮賷 兀賲乇賷賰丕
賵兀賷囟丕 匕賰乇鬲 丕賱毓丿賷丿 賲賳 丕賱賲氐賵乇賷賳 賵兀爻賱賵亘賴賲 賮賷 丕賱鬲氐賵賷乇 賵兀賲孬賱丞 賱賴
賮丕賱亘毓囟 賷亘丨孬 毓賳 丕賱噩賲丕賱 兀賵 丨鬲賶 毓賳 丕賱賯亘丨 賵丕賱睾乇丕亘丞 賵丌賱丕賲 丕賱丌禺乇賷賳
丕賱賲賴賲 丕賱亘丨孬 毓賳 丕賱賲禺鬲賱賮 賵丕賱賲丐孬乇
丕爻鬲賲鬲毓鬲 亘賯乇丕亍丞 兀賮賰丕乇 爻賵夭丕賳 賲賵賳鬲丕噩 賵鬲丨賱賷賱賴丕 賱賱賲賵囟賵毓 賵毓乇囟賴丕 賱丌乇丕亍 丕賱賲賮賰乇賷賳 賵丕賱賰購鬲丕亘 賵丕賱賲氐賵乇賷賳
賵乇睾賲 丕賳 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 賳購卮乇 賮賷 爻賳丞 1977, 廿賱丕 兀賳賴 賱丕 賷夭丕賱 賲賳丕爻亘 賱毓氐乇賳丕 丕賱丨丕賱賷
賱賰賳 賲丕 賷賳賯氐 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 - 丕賱匕賷 賷鬲賰賱賲 毓賳 丕賱鬲氐賵賷乇 丕賱賮賵鬲賵睾乇丕賮賷 - 賴賵 丕賱氐賵乇 賱鬲賵囟賷丨 丕賱賰孬賷乇 賲賳 丕賱兀賲孬賱丞 丕賱賲胤乇賵丨丞
Profile Image for 尝耻铆蝉.
2,274 reviews1,179 followers
September 20, 2024
I was fond of photography (no disappearance on that side!). It was the first book I read about photography, which is not technical. I remember something profoundly complex, which helped me better penetrate this image's world even if the subject was not treated only under its artistic side. Good memories.
Profile Image for Prerna.
223 reviews1,954 followers
July 11, 2021
The camera as a phallus. What an idea! Outrageous, scandalous, sexy and with a great degree of truth. We're all image junkies, living in an age where we try to mark our development through a series of photographs that we hope will speak for us, instead of us. Sontag writes that to photograph is to appropriate the photographed. And it's not just objects that are photographed, we photograph poverty, misery, pain, death - so we appropriate emotions too- to what purpose? To use the photograph as a signifier? What is it in us that makes us covet this sort of obscure, dismal immortality?

The act of photographing demands that the instance being photographed remain static, and therefore, Sontag argues that photography has a vested interest in the status quo remaining unchanged. This is particularly amusing to me because the multitudes of photographs on social media fashioned after a common, 'trendy' theme and marketed using tags which, to me, is very reminiscent of dead butterflies being pinned onto boards, all seem different iterations of the same prototype. We are not just asking for immortality, we are asking that 'this moment' remain immortal (and it's a particularly crappy moment if you ask me.) That it be preserved within the dynamics of time relentlessly moving forward, but to what avail? Who's going to unearth all these images? These digital mass graves?

By furnishing this already crowded world with a duplicate one of images, photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is.

A society that is ruled by class, race and sex based discriminations needs an anaesthetic, and the legion of images provide us with more data than we could consume in ten different lifetimes. The elite keep their control while we keep our illusions and it's a win-win y'all.

Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as a spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images. The freedom to consume a plurality of images and goods is equated with freedom itself. The narrowing of free political choice to free economic consumption requires the unlimited production and consumption of images.

I realise this has been more of a pessimistic rant than a review, but it's sunday and I want to sleep. So meh.
Profile Image for Ahmad Sharabiani.
9,562 reviews5 followers
May 6, 2021
On Photography, Susan Sontag

First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images which are continually inserted between experience and reality.

Sontag develops further the concept of 'transparency'.

When anything can be photographed and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely with no expectations of discovering what it means.

This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.

鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮 乇賵夭 倬賳噩賲 賲丕賴 賲蹖 爻丕賱 2012賲蹖賱丕丿蹖

毓賳賵丕賳: 丿乇亘丕乇踿 毓讴丕爻蹖貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 爻賵夭丕賳 爻賵賳鬲丕诏貨 亘丕 诏賮鬲丕乇蹖 丕夭 噩丕賳 亘乇噩乇貨 賲鬲乇噩賲 賳诏賷賳 卮賷丿賵卮貨 賵蹖乇丕蹖卮 賲鬲賳 賵 诏夭蹖賳卮 鬲氐丕賵蹖乇 賮乇卮蹖丿 丌匕乇賳诏貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 丨乇賮賴 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴貙 趩丕倬 丕賵賱 賵 丿賵賲 1389貙 1390貨 丿乇 400氐貙 賲氐賵乇貨 趩丕倬 爻賵賲 1392貨 趩丕倬 趩賴丕乇賲貙 1393貨 趩丕倬 倬賳噩賲 1394貙 丿乇 416氐貙 賲氐賵乇貨 卮丕亘讴 9786009197729貨 趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 1396貨 丿乇 381氐貨 賲氐賵乇貨 賲賵囟賵毓 毓讴丕爻蹖 賴賳乇蹖 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕 - 爻丿賴 20賲

毓賳賵丕賳: 丿乇亘丕乇賴 蹖 毓讴丕爻蹖貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 爻賵夭丕賳 爻丕賳鬲丕诏貨 賲鬲乇噩賲 賲噩蹖丿 丕禺诏乇貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 趩丕倬 賵 賳卮乇 賳馗乇貙 丨乇賮賴 賴賳乇賲賳丿貙 1390貨 丿乇 240氐貙 賲氐賵乇貨 卮丕亘讴 9786001520617貨 趩丕倬 丿賵賲 1392貨 趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 亘蹖丿诏賱貨 1397貨 丿乇 296氐貨 卮丕亘讴 9786007806791貨

毓賳賵丕賳: 丿乇亘丕乇賴 毓讴丕爻蹖貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 爻賵夭丕賳 爻賵賳鬲丕诏貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賮乇夭丕賳賴 胤丕賴乇蹖貨 賵蹖乇丕蹖卮 賲蹖賳丕 爻蹖鈥屫驰屫� 丕丨爻丕賳 賲噩蹖丿蹖鈥屫屫必ж� 亘賴 爻賮丕乇卮 丕賳噩賲賳 爻蹖賳賲丕蹖 噩賵丕賳丕賳 丕蹖乇丕賳貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 讴鬲丕亘 丌亘丕賳貙 趩丕倬 丿賵賲 1397貨 卮丕亘讴 9786007343913貨

毓賳賵丕賳: 丿乇亘丕乇賴 毓讴丕爻蹖: 賲噩賲賵毓賴 噩爻鬲丕乇賴丕貙 賳賯丿賴丕 賵 蹖丕丿丿丕卮鬲鈥屬囏� 賵丕賱鬲乇 亘賳蹖丕賲蹖賳貨鈥� 亘丕 噩爻鬲丕乇蹖 丕夭 倬賱 賵丕賱乇蹖貨 賲賵禺乇賴鈥� 丕蹖 丕夭 爻賵夭丕賳 爻賵賳鬲丕诏貨 賵蹖乇丕爻鬲丕乇 丕爻鬲乇 賱爻賱蹖貨 鬲乇噩賲賴 丌蹖丿蹖賳 乇丨蹖賲蹖鈥屬举堌必⒇藏ж� 鬲賴乇丕賳: 丨乇賮賴 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴鈥忊€� 1398貨 丿乇 375氐貨 卮丕亘讴 978600229貨

賮賴乇爻鬲 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳 禺丕賳賲 芦賳诏蹖賳 卮蹖丿賵卮禄貨 芦蹖丕丿丿丕卮鬲 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴貙 氐 15禄貨 芦丿乇 睾丕乇 丕賮賱丕胤賵賳貙 氐 17禄貨 芦丌賲乇蹖讴丕蹖 鬲蹖乇賴 賵 鬲丕乇 丿乇 毓讴爻 賴丕貙 氐 59禄貨 芦丕卮蹖丕蹖 賲丕賱蹖禺賵賱蹖丕蹖蹖貙 氐 109禄貨 芦賯賴乇賲丕賳蹖 丿乇 丿蹖丿賳貙 氐 183禄貨 芦丕賳噩蹖賱 賴丕蹖 毓讴丕爻蹖貙 氐 247禄貨 芦噩賴丕賳 鬲氐賵蹖乇貙 氐 311禄貨 诏夭蹖丿賴 賲禺鬲氐乇 賳賯賱 賯賵賱賴丕貙 氐 359禄貨 芦讴丕乇亘乇丿 毓讴丕爻蹖貙 噩丕賳 亘乇噩乇貙 氐 395禄貨

賳賯賱 丕夭 賲賯丿賲賴 芦爻賵夭丕賳 爻丕賳鬲诏 賲丕賴 賲蹖 爻丕賱 1977賲蹖賱丕丿蹖禄: (賴賲賴 趩蹖夭 亘丕 蹖讴 賲賯丕賱賴 卮乇賵毓 卮丿貨 賲賯丕賱賴 丕蹖 丿乇 亘丕亘 亘乇禺蹖 賲爻丕卅賱 丕禺賱丕賯蹖貙 賵 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖 卮賳丕禺鬲蹖 丕蹖貙 讴賴 亘賴 爻亘亘 丨囟賵乇 賴賲蹖卮诏蹖 毓讴丕爻賴丕貙 亘賵噩賵丿 丌賲丿賴 亘賵丿賳丿貨 丕賲丕 乇賮鬲賴 乇賮鬲賴貙 賴乇趩賴 亘蹖卮鬲乇 亘賴 毓讴爻賴丕 丕賳丿蹖卮蹖丿賲貙 丌賳賴丕 賴賲 丿乇 賳馗乇賲 倬蹖趩蹖丿賴 鬲乇貙 賵 賲毓賳丕丿丕乇 卮丿賳丿貨 賴賲蹖賳 卮丿 讴賴 蹖讴 賲賯丕賱賴貙 亘賴 賲賯丕賱賴 丕蹖 丿蹖诏乇 丕賳噩丕賲蹖丿貨 賵 丌賳賴賲 丿乇 讴賲丕賱 鬲毓噩亘 亘賴 蹖讴蹖 丿蹖诏乇貨 賵 丕賱蹖 丌禺乇)貨 倬丕蹖丕賳 賳賯賱

鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 15/02/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
Profile Image for Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun).
312 reviews2,167 followers
Read
June 7, 2019
It鈥檚 like there are questions and shadows in the periphery of my vision, and Susan Sontag puts both hands on my shoulders and turns me to face them head on.
Profile Image for Mackenzie M-B.
14 reviews3 followers
February 11, 2009
Step one: buy this book.
Step two: find a writing utensil
Step three: go on the subway/metro/pvta and go!

you will want to underline just about every sentence because it is life changing. You will want to hug your camera and then throw it into a fire. You will never approach the world the same again.
Get ready.
Just do it.

And then go read Regarding the Pain of Others, because it will be like playing Candyland.
Profile Image for Dmitry Berkut.
Author听5 books201 followers
September 6, 2024
A philosophical exploration of the nature of photography and its impact on society. Despite the academic language, the work is gripping due to the relevance of its ideas. Sontag sees photography not just as art, but as a powerful tool for perceiving the world. She argues that photography shapes our understanding of reality by turning it into static images, often devaluing the essence of phenomena.

Her critical approach makes the text relevant today, in the era of digital visual culture, when images dominate everyday life through social networks and media. The book invites reflection on how photographs not only document but also change our perception of history, events, and one another.

As a professional photojournalist, I was particularly interested in seeing how Susan Sontag dissects the process of photography itself. She views photography not only as a technical tool, but as a powerful means of interpreting and influencing perceptions of reality.

Profile Image for 袦邪泄褟 小褌邪胁懈褌褋泻邪褟.
2,079 reviews200 followers
August 25, 2022
The collection of essays "About Photography" is one of the most famous works of Susan Sontag, it seems that talking about her today, first of all they remember this thing. Not by chance, considering how widely photography has entered the current everyday life. The desire to understand what motivates us to commit certain actions, to indulge in a certain passion, the desire to bring a philosophical basis for this is natural, and nowadays photographing is one of the most common actions and the most accessible in the satisfaction of passions. And I haven't said this yet about the possibility of creative self-expression, which is priceless.

袣芯谢谢械泻褑懈芯薪懈褉芯胁邪褌褜 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈 蟹薪邪褔懈褌 泻芯谢谢械泻褑懈芯薪懈褉芯胁邪褌褜 屑懈褉
袞械谢邪薪懈械 锌芯写褌胁械褉写懈褌褜 褉械邪谢褜薪芯褋褌褜 懈 褉邪褋褕懈褉懈褌褜 芯锌褘褌 褋 锌芯屑芯褖褜褞 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈 鈥� 褝褌芯 褝褋褌械褌懈褔械褋泻芯械 锌芯褌褉械斜懈褌械谢褜褋褌胁芯, 泻芯褌芯褉褘屑 褋械谐芯写薪褟 蟹邪褉邪卸械薪褘 胁褋械.
小褜褞蟹械薪 袟芯薪褌邪谐 (胁芯蟹屑芯卸械薪 胁邪褉懈邪薪褌 锌褉芯懈蟹薪芯褕械薪懈褟 "小芯薪褌邪谐") 锌懈褋邪褌械谢褜薪懈褑邪, 褎懈谢芯褋芯褎, 褋褑械薪邪褉懈褋褌 懈 褉械卸懈褋褋械褉 褌械邪褌褉邪 懈 泻懈薪芯, 谢懈褌械褉邪褌褍褉薪褘泄 懈 褏褍写芯卸械褋褌胁械薪薪褘泄 泻褉懈褌懈泻, 懈泻芯薪邪 屑懈褉芯胁芯谐芯 褎械屑懈薪懈褋褌褋泻芯谐芯 写胁懈卸械薪懈褟. 袠 谐芯胁芯褉褟 芯 褎械屑懈薪懈蟹屑械, 褟 懈屑械褞 胁 胁懈写褍 薪械 褌芯谢褜泻芯 斜芯褉褜斜褍 蟹邪 锌褉邪胁邪 卸械薪褖懈薪, 胁 褋褎械褉械 懈薪褌械褉械褋芯胁 袟芯薪褌邪谐 斜褘谢懈 锌褉械写褋褌邪胁懈褌械谢懈 屑械薪褜褕懈薪褋褌胁 懈 褋芯褑懈邪谢褜薪芯-褍谐薪械褌械薪薪褘褏 谐褉褍锌锌, 懈蟹屑械薪械薪懈械 芯褌薪芯褕械薪懈褟 褋 褋褌懈谐屑邪褌懈蟹懈褉芯胁邪薪薪褘屑 褌械屑邪屑, 泻邪泻 小袩袠袛, 薪邪锌褉懈屑械褉. 袪邪褋褑胁械褌邪 械械 泻邪褉褜械褉邪 褉芯屑邪薪懈褋褌邪 写芯褋褌懈谐谢邪 褋 锌褉懈褋褍卸写械薪懈械屑 袧邪褑懈芯薪邪谢褜薪芯 泻薪懈卸薪芯泄 锌褉械屑懈懈 蟹邪 褉芯屑邪薪 "袙 袗屑械褉懈泻械".

小斜芯褉薪懈泻 褝褋褋械 "袨 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈" 芯写薪邪 懈蟹 褋邪屑褘褏 懈蟹胁械褋褌薪褘褏 褉邪斜芯褌 锌懈褋邪褌械谢褜薪懈褑褘, 泻邪卸械褌褋褟, 谐芯胁芯褉褟 芯 薪械泄 褋械谐芯写薪褟, 胁 锌械褉胁褍褞 芯褔械褉械写褜 胁褋锌芯屑懈薪邪褞褌 褝褌褍 胁械褖褜. 袧械 褋谢褍褔邪泄薪芯, 褍褔懈褌褘胁邪褟, 薪邪褋泻芯谢褜泻芯 褕懈褉芯泻芯 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褟 胁芯褕谢邪 胁 薪褘薪械褕薪褞褞 锌芯胁褋械写薪械胁薪芯褋褌褜. 袞械谢邪薪懈械 锌芯薪懈屑邪褌褜, 褔褌芯 写胁懈卸械褌 薪邪屑懈, 褋芯胁械褉褕邪褞褖懈屑懈 褌械 懈谢懈 懈薪褘械 写械泄褋褌胁懈褟, 锌褉械写邪褞褖懈屑褋褟 薪械泻芯泄 褋褌褉邪褋褌懈, 褋褌褉械屑谢械薪懈械 锌芯写胁械褋褌懈 锌芯写 褝褌芯 褎懈谢芯褋芯褎褋泻褍褞 斜邪蟹褍 械褋褌械褋褌胁械薪薪芯, 邪 胁 薪邪褕懈 写薪懈 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褉芯胁邪薪懈械 芯写薪芯 懈蟹 褋邪屑褘褏 褉邪褋锌褉芯褋褌褉邪薪械薪薪褘褏 写械泄褋褌胁懈泄 懈 褋邪屑邪褟 写芯褋褌褍锌薪邪褟 胁 褍写芯胁谢械褌胁芯褉械薪懈懈 懈蟹 褋褌褉邪褋褌械泄. 袠 褝褌芯 褟 械褖械 薪械 褋泻邪蟹邪谢邪 芯 胁芯蟹屑芯卸薪芯褋褌懈 褌胁芯褉褔械褋泻芯谐芯 褋邪屑芯胁褘褉邪卸械薪懈褟, 泻芯褌芯褉邪褟 斜械褋褑械薪薪邪.

袙 褋斜芯褉薪懈泻 胁褏芯写褟褌 褕械褋褌褜 褝褋褋械 懈 "袣褉邪褌泻邪褟 邪薪褌芯谢芯谐懈褟 褑懈褌邪褌" - 胁褘褋泻邪蟹褘胁邪薪懈褟 懈蟹胁械褋褌薪褘褏 谢褞写械泄, 锌芯褋胁褟褖械薪薪褘械 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈, 泻邪泻 胁懈写褍 懈褋泻褍褋褋褌胁邪 懈 褋锌芯褋芯斜褍 胁蟹邪懈屑芯写械泄褋褌胁懈褟 褋 屑懈褉芯屑. 袩械褉胁褘泄 褌械泻褋褌 "袙 袩谢邪褌芯薪芯胁芯泄 锌械褖械褉械" 芯褌褋褘谢邪械褌 泻 芯斜褉邪蟹褍 褉械邪谢褜薪芯褋褌懈, 写邪薪薪芯泄 胁 芯褖褍褖械薪懈褟褏, 泻邪泻 褋泻芯谢褜卸械薪懈褞 褌械薪械泄 锌芯 褋褌械薪械, 泻芯褌芯褉褘械 胁懈写褟褌 锌褉懈泻芯胁邪薪薪褘械 胁 锌械褖械褉械 褋锌懈薪芯泄 泻芯 胁褏芯写褍 谢褞写懈. 袦褘 锌芯-锌褉械卸薪械屑褍 薪械 屑芯卸械屑 胁懈写械褌褜 屑懈褉 褌邪泻懈屑, 泻邪泻芯胁 芯薪 胁 褉械邪谢褜薪芯褋褌懈, 薪芯 褋褍褖械褋褌胁芯胁邪薪懈械 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈 屑械薪褟械褌 褉邪泻褍褉褋, 褔褍褌褜 褉邪褋褕懈褉褟褟 械谐芯. 肖芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褉褍褟, 屑褘 芯褌褔邪褋褌懈 锌褉懈褋胁邪懈胁邪械屑 屑懈褉.

"袗屑械褉懈泻邪 胁 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褟褏 小泻胁芯蟹褜 褌褍褋泻谢芯械 褋褌械泻谢芯", 胁褌芯褉邪褟 褋褌邪褌褜褟 锌芯褋胁褟褖械薪邪 褉邪斜芯褌邪屑 袛懈邪薪褘 袗褉斜褍褋 - 懈蟹胁械褋褌薪芯谐芯 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎邪 懈 蟹薪邪褔懈褌械谢褜薪芯泄 褎懈谐褍褉褘 泻褍谢褜褌褍褉薪芯谐芯 斜褝泻谐褉邪褍薪写邪 胁褌芯褉芯泄-褌褉械褌褜械泄 褔械褌胁械褉褌械泄 啸啸 胁械泻邪. 袧邪锌懈褋邪薪薪芯械 锌芯写 胁锌械褔邪褌谢械薪懈械屑 芯褌 褉械褌褉芯褋锌械泻褌懈胁薪芯泄 胁褘褋褌邪胁泻懈 袗褉斜褍褋 胁褋泻芯褉械 锌芯褋谢械 械械 褋屑械褉褌懈, 芯薪芯 写邪谢械泻芯 芯褌 斜械蟹褍写械褉卸薪芯谐芯 胁芯褋褏胁邪谢械薪懈褟 锌芯 锌褉懈薪褑懈锌褍 "褏芯褉芯褕芯 懈谢懈 薪懈褔械谐芯". 小泻芯褉械械 袟芯薪褌邪谐 芯褌薪芯褋懈褌褋褟 泻 褉邪斜芯褌邪屑 褋胁芯械泄 谐械褉芯懈薪懈 泻褉懈褌懈褔械褋泻懈. 袛械谢芯 胁 褌芯屑, 褔褌芯 褑械薪褌褉邪谢褜薪褘屑 屑芯褌懈胁芯屑 胁 褌胁芯褉褔械褋褌胁械 袗褉斜褍褋 斜褘谢懈 屑邪褉谐懈薪邪谢褘, 褎褉懈泻懈 褉邪蟹薪芯谐芯 褉芯写邪 懈 芯斜褘褔薪褘械 谢褞写懈 胁 械褋褌械褋褌胁械薪薪芯泄 写谢褟 褋械斜褟 芯斜褋褌邪薪芯胁泻械, 泻芯褌芯褉褘械 锌芯写邪胁邪谢懈褋褜 褋 褌邪泻芯谐芯 褉邪泻褍褉褋邪, 褔褌芯 胁褘谐谢褟写械谢懈 褋泻芯褉械械 锌邪褉芯写懈械泄 薪邪 褋械斜褟 褋邪屑懈褏. 袚芯胁芯褉褟 芯 械械 褉邪斜芯褌邪褏, 袟芯薪褌邪谐 锌褉懈褏芯写懈褌 泻 胁褘胁芯写褍, 褔褌芯 褋褌褉械屑谢械薪懈械 谢褞斜芯泄 褑械薪芯泄 芯褌褘褋泻邪褌褜 泻褉邪褋芯褌褍 胁 褍褉芯写褋褌胁械 写芯褋褌邪褌芯褔薪芯 斜械蟹薪邪写械卸薪芯. 邪 褝褋褌械褌懈褔械褋泻芯械 胁褋褌褍锌邪械褌 薪邪 褌械褉褉懈褌芯褉懈褞 褝褌懈褔械褋泻芯谐芯 褋 薪械 褋邪屑褘屑 谢褍褔褕懈屑 写谢褟 褋械斜褟 褉械蟹褍谢褜褌邪褌芯屑.

"袦械谢邪薪褏芯谢懈褔械褋泻懈械 芯斜褗械泻褌褘" 锌芯褋胁褟褖械薪邪 褋褞褉褉械邪谢懈褋褌懈褔薪芯褋褌懈 锌褉懈褉芯写褘 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈, 械械 褋懈褞屑懈薪褍褌薪芯褋褌懈, 褋 褌械褔械薪懈械屑 胁褉械屑械薪懈 懈蟹屑械薪褟褞褖械泄, 锌芯褉芯泄 褉邪写懈泻邪谢褜薪芯, 胁芯蟹屑芯卸薪褘械 褌褉邪泻褌芯胁泻懈. 孝邪泻 锌芯褋褌邪薪芯胁芯褔薪褘械 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈, 锌褉懈蟹胁邪薪薪褘械 懈谐褉邪褌褜 褉芯谢褜 屑邪薪懈褎械褋褌邪 薪械泻芯械谐芯 褏褍写芯卸械褋褌胁械薪薪芯谐芯 薪邪锌褉邪胁谢械薪懈褟, 芯泻邪蟹褘胁邪褞褌褋褟 褋谢械锌泻芯屑 褝锌芯褏懈, 邪 写械褌褋泻懈械 褎芯褌芯 懈蟹胁械褋褌薪褘褏 谢褞写械泄, 褋写械谢邪薪薪褘械 胁褋械谐芯 谢懈褕褜 褋 褑械谢褜褞 蟹邪锌械褔邪褌谢械褌褜 屑懈谢褘褏 写械褌芯泻, 褋屑芯褌褉褟褌褋褟 褋芯胁褋械屑 懈薪邪褔械, 泻芯谐写邪 蟹薪邪械褕褜, 褋褌邪谢 褝褌芯褌 泻邪褉邪锌褍蟹 小褌邪谢懈薪褘屑 懈谢懈 袩褉械褋谢懈.

"袚械褉芯懈蟹屑 胁懈写械薪懈褟". 校胁懈写械褌褜 懈 蟹邪锌械褔邪褌谢械褌褜 泻褉邪褋芯褌褍 - 泻邪泻 芯褋薪芯胁薪芯泄 锌芯褋褘谢 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈懈. 袙 芯褌谢懈褔懈械 芯褌 卸懈胁芯锌懈褋懈, 褋 泻芯褌芯褉芯泄 械械 褔邪褋褌芯 褋芯芯褌薪芯褋褟褌, 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褔械褋泻芯械 胁懈写械薪懈械 薪械 褋芯蟹写邪械褌 褑械谢芯褋褌薪褍褞 泻邪褉褌懈薪褍 屑懈褉邪, 薪芯 薪邪锌褉芯褌懈胁, 写褉芯斜懈褌 械谐芯 薪邪 褎褉邪谐屑械薪褌褘. 袩芯褉芯泄 褋褗械屑泻邪 懈蟹屑械薪褟械褌 胁芯褋锌褉懈褟褌懈械, 写械谢邪褟 褝褉芯褌懈褔薪褘械 芯斜褗械泻褌褘 斜械褋锌芯谢褘屑懈 懈 锌褉懈写邪胁邪褟 褋械泻褋褍邪谢褜薪褍褞 锌褉懈褌褟谐邪褌械谢褜薪芯褋褌褜 胁械褖邪屑 懈蟹薪邪褔邪谢褜薪芯 写邪谢械泻懈屑 芯褌 褝褉芯褌懈褔械褋泻芯谐芯 泻芯薪褌械泻褋褌邪.

"肖芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褔械褋泻懈械 械胁邪薪谐械谢懈褟" 袨 褌芯屑, 泻邪泻 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褟 锌芯斜褍卸写邪械褌 褋胁芯懈褏 写械褟褌械谢械泄 褋薪芯胁邪 懈 褋薪芯胁邪 芯斜褗褟褋薪褟褌褜 屑懈褉褍 褑械薪薪芯褋褌褜 褌芯谐芯, 褔械屑 芯薪懈 蟹邪薪懈屑邪褞褌褋褟, 锌芯写胁芯写褟 褌械芯褉械褌懈褔械褋泻褍褞 斜邪蟹褍. 袩褉械褌械薪蟹懈褟 薪邪 蟹薪邪薪懈械, 锌褉械褌械薪蟹懈褟 薪邪 褌胁芯褉褔械褋褌胁芯, 锌褉械写褋褌邪胁谢械薪懈械 芯 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎械, 泻邪泻 芯斜 懈写械邪谢褜薪芯屑 薪邪斜谢褞写邪褌械谢械 懈 芯写薪芯胁褉械屑械薪薪邪褟 薪械胁芯蟹屑芯卸薪芯褋褌褜 写芯褋褌懈褔褜 卸械谢邪械屑芯谐芯 褝褎褎械泻褌邪 斜械蟹 胁屑械褕邪褌械谢褜褋褌胁邪, 斜械蟹 薪械泻芯褌芯褉芯谐芯 褝谢械屑械薪褌邪 锌芯褋褌邪薪芯胁芯褔薪芯褋褌懈, 泻芯褌芯褉邪褟 邪胁褌芯屑邪褌懈褔械褋泻懈 胁褘胁芯写懈褌 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎邪 懈蟹 褋褌邪褌褍褋邪 薪邪斜谢褞写邪褌械谢褟 薪邪 褉芯谢褜 褍褔邪褋褌薪懈泻邪 懈 褉械卸懈褋褋械褉邪. 袙褋械 卸械: 褎懈泻褋懈褉芯胁邪褌褜 懈谢懈 褉械卸械褋褋懈褉芯胁邪褌褜?

"袦懈褉 懈蟹芯斜褉邪卸械薪懈泄" 芯褌 袩谢邪褌芯薪邪 写芯 肖械泄械褉斜邪褏邪, 褎懈谢芯褋芯褎懈褟 褋褔懈褌邪谢邪 懈蟹芯斜褉邪卸械薪懈械 芯褌谢懈褔薪褘屑 芯褌 褉械邪谢褜薪芯褋褌懈. 袨写薪邪泻芯 褎芯褌芯谐褉邪褎懈褟, 胁 褋懈谢褍 薪械泻芯械泄 锌褉懈褋褍褖械泄 械泄 屑邪谐懈懈, 薪械 褌芯谢褜泻芯 褌芯褔薪芯 褎懈泻褋懈褉褍械褌 泻褍褋芯褔械泻 屑懈褉邪 懈 锌芯蟹胁芯谢褟械褌 锌褉懈褋胁芯懈褌褜 械谐芯, 薪芯 懈 褋褌邪薪芯胁懈褌褋褟 胁 泻邪泻芯泄-褌芯 屑械褉械 褋褉械写褋褌胁芯屑 褍锌褉邪胁谢械薪懈褟 褉械邪谢褜薪芯褋褌懈, 懈蟹屑械薪械薪懈褟 械械.

袪械蟹褞屑懈褉褍褟: 蟹邪屑械褔邪褌械谢褜薪芯 懈薪褌械褉械褋薪褘泄, 褋芯写械褉卸邪褌械谢褜薪褘泄 懈 锌褉懈 褝褌芯屑 褔懈褌邪斜械谢褜薪褘泄 褋斜芯褉薪懈泻 褝褋褋械 胁 锌褉械胁芯褋褏芯写薪芯屑 锌械褉械胁芯写械 袙懈泻褌芯褉邪 袚芯谢褘褕械胁邪, 锌邪褌褉懈邪褉褏邪 芯褌械褔械褋褌胁械薪薪芯谐芯 谢懈褌械褉邪褌褍褉薪芯谐芯 锌械褉械胁芯写邪.

Profile Image for Vicky "phenkos".
149 reviews130 followers
March 24, 2019
Susan Sontag starts her book on photography with a reference to Plato's cave, a dark prison only a few escape. This is not accidental. It defines and presages the thinking that underlies the whole book. By placing a reference to Plato at the very beginning Sontag is telling us: 'I subscribe to the fundamental Platonic principles: the real world vs. the world of imitations. Forms vs. art. Reality vs. the cave.' Or something like that. So what does this entail for her analysis of photography?

Sontag is angry at photography. She's angry because photography lacks the means (or so she thinks) to distinguish between truth and falsity, compassion and detached observation. Instead, photography allies itself either with the early, optimistic humanism of, say, Walt Whitman (every person is the same, everyone is equal with everyone else, everyone deserves as much to be photographed as everyone else) or with the later humanism of Andy Warhol (again, everyone is the same, everyone is equal with everyone else, no subject has more of a right to be photographed than anyone else).

Why is this a problem, we might ask? Sontag does not spell this out very clearly, but her analysis points to a failure on the part of photography to make itself an instrument of politics and history. Sontag regrets the fact that by photographing each and every subject without concern for the context photography abstracts from the historical specificity that gives meaning to that subject. She also laments photography's failute to be politically engaged. But what about those photographs that have shaped the public's perception of humanitarian wars and disasters, you might ask? What about the photograph of the naked, napalmed Vietnamese girl that had an impact on American public opnion about the Vietnam war? Sontag replies that it's not the photographs themselves that alter public perceptions but an ideological framework that predates these photographs and allows them to have an impact. She may be right in this. But doesn't this apply equally to any other endeavour to bring atrocities to public attention? Isn't journalism or activism subject to the same vicissitudes?

Here's where Sontag's Platonism kicks in; photography fails because it cannot bring about a political moment of truth that disperses the fantasies of the cave and forces the cave prisoners out into the open where they will be confronted by reality. It fails because it cannot bring about understanding. But if photography can't, then what can? Political analysis? Speeches? Activism? Necessary as these are in their own right, they are as tied to the overarching framework as photography is (although an analysis committed to understanding, as Sontag's is, would like to think not).

Edit: I wasn't able to read this again properly for the second time, as I intended, but I gave the book an additional star because it has, after all, shaped greatly the philosophical understanding of photography. I'm still not convinced by Sontag and plan a more sustained study of this book in conjunction with other texts, Derrida's Copy, Archive, Signature, and Benjamin's The Work of Art at the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Profile Image for Vipassana.
117 reviews367 followers
May 23, 2015
I approached On Photography expecting a sense of warmth and intellect that Maria Popova paints Susan Sontag with. One essay in, I was slightly disappointed to feel no warmth. So, I read of hers where the interviewer says the "yes and no" attitude is typical of her writing, something that I had experienced as well. She responds by saying that it is not yes and no, rather this but also that. She argues in defence of the premise of seriousness, an idea both close to my heart and valuable for the essays in this volume. Seriousness does not mean the heaviness equates it to, rather slow, deliberate rigour. A quality present in all the essays as she entertains many aspects of photography for the benefit of the reader.

Sontag looks at photography from the perspective of the photo, the photographer and the viewer. She discusses how photography has changed the equation of an individual's association with the rest of the world in her essay, In Plato's Cave. Photographs fiddle with the scale that one is trained to see the world, and the notion of time that we have collectively accepted. An intriguing idea is that photography can only reinforce a moral position, not create one. This was one of the many ideas I hadn't thought about before, ideas that seemed to hold ground but I would have liked to discuss them. This is a really good book to read as a group.

I went through my notes and reread several parts of the collection after reading a review that chastised Sontag for her content, because it was very much unlike my reading. I'd noticed Sontag's euphemism free critique of Diane Arbus, yet I did not consider her derogatory. This is a contentious debate that will probably give rise to a lot of presentism sins, so I won't discuss that. On Diane Arbus' work, I'm not convinced she didn't approve of it. In America, Seen through Photographs she evokes Walt Whitman's notion that beauty and ugliness being immaterial in an inclusive embrace of the real. Arbus's wikipedia page suggests that Sontag opposed the lack of beauty in Arbus' work and its failure to make the viewer feel compassionate about Arbus' subjects. I checked the citations for it, a published after Sontag's death. I haven't read the paper but from my reading of this work, Sontag simply stated that Arbus' work wasn't meant to stir compassion.
Arbus's photographs - with their acceptance of the appalling - suggest a naivete which is both coy and sinister, for it is based on distance, on privilege, on a feeling that the viewer is asked to look at is really other. Bunuel, when asked once why he made movies, said it was "to show that this is not the best of all possible worlds." Arbus took photographs to show something simpler - that there is another world.
I agree with her and I love Arbus' work. For a person who hates taking pictures and having my picture taken, I really love Arbus for the same reason. Another says she notes with bemusement of Arbus' subjects who are 鈥減athetic, pitiable, as well as repulsive鈥� look 鈥渃heerful, self-accepting, matter-of-fact.鈥� She wondered, 鈥淒o they know how grotesque they are? It seems as if they don鈥檛.鈥� They 鈥渁ppear not to know that they are ugly.鈥� Looking at how the author has cherry picked the statements. it looks like either a deliberate case of misconstruing what an author meant to say or not even trying to understand*. Sontag quotes Nietzche, To experience a thing as beautiful means: to experience it necessarily wrongly and as I mentioned earlier, also Walt Whitman at the very beginning of the essay. These are the ideas she carries of beauty. Her statements on Arbus' photography and subjects are about how Arbus transcends the limited ideas of beauty, to produce a work that accepted another world.

Photography is not an art, it is a medium, like writing, than can be used to produce art, document events, entertain, lie and any other thing you want it too. The appeal of this idea is that in is accepting of the numerous claims of the "purpose of photography" that Sontag writes about.
As Wittgenstein argued for words, that the meaning is in the use - so for each photograph.
I've recently taken a fancy for the idea for vignettes and fragmented writing. Photographs are probably one of the most obvious forms of fragmentation and this essay makes a case against the truths that can be rendered in a dissociated moment.. However significant a single event. it cannot embed a wholeness required to understanding. This idea reminds one of the role that the viewer plays in photography.

The last section, is a fascinating one. A homage to Walter Benjamin through A Brief Anthology of Quotations. Quotes from philosophers, photographers, and even ads of camera makers. There are quotes her that almost entirely oppose one and other. They all sit together in one chapter as if to mock the very ideas of true and false.

Taking photographs is an undeniable part of everyday life, and like all widely prevalent activities, it is not thought about by those who practice it. This makes Sontag's essay immensely valuable, especially because she doesn't really come to any conclusion. Of Photography, she says this, but also that.

--
A guide to the photos mentioned in the essays -

*From , a much better condensation of what Sontag said of Arbus - The critic Susan Sontag divined that Arbus photographed ''people who are pathetic, pitiable, as well as repulsive,'' from a vantage point ''based on distance, on privilege, on a feeling that what the viewer is asked to look at is really other.''

--
May 21, 2015
Profile Image for Hilda hasani.
160 reviews176 followers
March 4, 2020
讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 鬲丕亘爻鬲丕賳 丿賵 爻丕賱 倬蹖卮 丌睾丕夭 讴乇丿賴 亘賵丿賲貙 鬲丕 賳蹖賲賴 禺賵丕賳丿賴貙 乇賴丕 讴乇丿賴 亘賵丿賲. 丕蹖賳 丿賮毓賴 讴賴 賯氐丿 讴乇丿賲 丿乇亘丕乇踿 毓讴丕爻蹖 乇丕 丕丿丕賲賴 丿賴賲 丨蹖賮蹖賲 丌賲丿 丿賵亘丕乇賴 丕夭 丕賵賱 賳禺賵丕賳賲. 丕賱丕賳 讴賴 禺賵丕賳丿賳 讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 鬲賲丕賲 讴乇丿賴 丕賲 賲蹖鬲賵丕賳賲 亘诏賵蹖賲 毓讴丕爻蹖 乇丕 丕蹖賳诏賵賳賴 亘丕蹖丿 丿乇讴 讴乇丿貨 鬲賲乇蹖賳 賵 鬲賲乇蹖賳 丿蹖丿賳 亘乇丕蹖 亘丕乇賴丕蹖 亘蹖 賳賴丕蹖鬲 夭蹖丕丿 賵 爻倬爻 卮乇賵毓 亘賴 禺賵丕賳丿賳 賯賱賲 丕賮乇丕丿蹖 賲丕賳賳丿 爻丕賳鬲丕诏. 毓讴丕爻蹖 丿乇 賳馗乇 丕賵 丌賳 丕賲乇 賲賯丿爻 賵 亘蹖 毓蹖亘 賵 賳賯氐 賳蹖爻鬲貙 丕賵 毓讴丕爻蹖 乇丕 讴丕賱亘丿 卮讴丕賮蹖 賲蹖 讴賳丿貙 爻丕賳鬲丕诏 禺賵亘 丿蹖丿賳 賵 亘乇乇爻蹖 毓賲蹖賯 賵 賳賯丕丿丕賳賴 乇丕 蹖丕丿 賲蹖 丿賴丿. 賳讴鬲踿 丿賱倬匕蹖乇 丿蹖诏乇 亘乇丕蹖 賲賳 賲賯丕賱踿 亘乇噩乇 毓夭蹖夭賲 丿乇 丕賳鬲賴丕蹖 讴鬲丕亘 亘賵丿. 鬲乇讴蹖亘 丕蹖賳 丿賵 賲诏乇 賲蹖 卮賵丿 亘丿 亘丕卮丿責 倬賳噩 爻鬲丕乇賴 亘丕 丕賯鬲丿丕乇!
Profile Image for David.
200 reviews625 followers
February 2, 2016
To think this was published in 1973 - when photographs were just mementos and souvenirs. What have they become now, in the age of the selfie? Sontag, Barthes, Benjamin, etc - many people have written about the semiotics and significance of photography as an "art." Photography has been held up as a record of things "as they were" - "photographs become exhibits in the trial that is history." says Walter Benjamin, comparing the subjects of photographs to crime scenes. But are photos still treated as such? In the age that we are in now, we seek in photographs not things "as they are" but rather ourselves as we could be - an angle or version of ourselves that exceeds our own appraisals and what we deem commensurate with reality. Whether the perfected art of the selfie, or the hundreds of photos taken to be riffled over, discarded, and retaken in search for the elusive one - our preference for modern photographs aligns more closely with creative art than with naturalistic reproduction or historical recording. But more than Benjamin or Barthes, who take at turns a mechanic and romantic view of the art of photography, Sontag's indictments of it seem particularly modern:
Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.
It is true in our modern day, as it was apparent to Sontag 50 years ago, that people have become addicted to photographs, and indeed that this addiction is a mental pollution. It has given rise to the kind of vacuous celebrity as the Kardashian cadre, famous basically for their cumulative navel-gazing and insipid banter. Photography has not only made us obsessed with ourselves, but has also made us obsessed with the way we are viewed by others, and the way by which we view and judge others. We do not take pictures for ourselves, but for the vacant appeal to the unidentified masses - love me! But do not love me as I am, love me only as I aspire to be, as I can angle and contort myself to be, for the duration of a shutter-click.

I have thought considerably about this face-to-the-world society that we live in, for a few years now, and have found its parallel in art. Note the painting:
We see Venus, lying in bed, looking at herself in the mirror - or so we think. But if you examine the angles, you notice that it is not possible for her to be viewing her own face in the mirror, because the reflection facing the artist is head-on, it must be that what she sees is in fact the artist. Remove the artist and replace him with the figureless audience of society. It is a perversion of narcissism - not to look longingly at oneself, but to preen and present oneself, gazing into an abyss and hoping for the abyss to gaze back, approvingly.

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.
For one, in a society so image-obsessed, the corrosion of beauty with age has made and supported the cosmetics industry to the gargantuan size that it has become. Photographs combat the effects of time. Like Dorian Gray's portrait, the series of photos we present to the world represent our best selves, which are impervious to age and destruction - the time and corrosion which we bear to preserve their beauty. Sontag is quite aware of the role photographs have in preserving a false sense of immortality. They preserve that which is endlessly fleeting. Barthes notes that the subjects of photos are "anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies." They are images chained down and de-contextualized, they simply are, and are expected to speak for themselves, while simultaneously being gagged.
Yet we don't mind gagging ourselves, silencing ourselves, pinning ourselves down, chaining ourselves to a reality that is skewed and misrepresented - and for what? To appeal to strangers in the void of the internet. We have lost our ability to appreciate the attentions of individuals because we have become so fixated on appealing to the swarming masses. We do not seek love, but orgiastic attention.

Desire has no history - at least it is experienced in each instance as all foreground, immediacy. It is aroused by archetypes and is, in that sense, abstract. But moral feelings are embedded in history, whose personae are concrete, whose situations are always specific. Thus, almost oppostite rules hold true fro the use of the photograph to awaken desire and to awaken conscience.
The photos we take, and more importantly that we curate of ourselves, subvert the content and context of the photograph. We denature the image, we wash it clean of it's history and re-contextualize it to suit ourselves best. We strip each photograph of all meaning so that we can window dress it in such and such a way that flatters our ego and the mannequin that we present to the discriminating masses. There are no morals to photographs - in fact they are tools of deceit, they are an immoral form of art, in that they masquerade as a form of representation and truth. Verisimilitude wearing the mask of veracity. Each photo I present of myself is only another piece of the fake-face I have constructed overtime. As online presence continues to take more and more precedence in our lives, the battle between who are are and who we present ourselves to be will come to a head. We cannot always be our best selfie. Our best photographs of ourselves eventually become photographs of someone who is dead, who is past - a previous version of ourselves that no longer exists and can never be reincarnated.
Profile Image for Walter Underwood.
388 reviews34 followers
December 4, 2013
This is the worst book I've read about photography. It isn't even about photography, it is about Susan Sontag consistently misunderstanding photographs. It isn't intellectual, either. It is her emotional responses to the shallowest possible reading of photographs.

The defining moment is in the appendix of quotations, the only good part of the book. The first quote is from the notebooks of William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the earliest photographers. He wrote, "Make picture of kaleidoscope." This idea of photography as painting with light is utterly outside the simplistic readings of photography in Sontag's book.

Don't waste your time. Instead, find a copy of or or read the essays on photographers in Janet Malcom's latest, .
Profile Image for Anna Bart艂omiejczyk.
195 reviews4,434 followers
May 29, 2018
呕yjemy w epoce obraz贸w. Wsp贸艂czesny cz艂owiek przyswaja je du偶o szybciej ni偶 tekst. I mo偶e cho膰by dlatego warto sobie przypomnie膰, co o fotografiach pisa艂a Susan Sontag w swoich esejach, kt贸re rok temu wyda艂o w nowym, od艣wie偶onym t艂umaczeniu wydawnictwo Karakter. 鈥濷 fotografii鈥� jest w tej chwili pozycj膮 ju偶 niemal kultow膮. Cho膰 zbi贸r ukaza艂 si臋 po raz pierwszy w 1977 roku, to nie straci艂 tak bardzo na aktualno艣ci.
Teksty ze zbioru 鈥濷 fotografii鈥� wolne s膮 od technicznego 偶argonu. Nie ma tu mowy o na艣wietlaniu, przys艂onie czy ekspozycji. Pojawiaj膮 si臋 za to takie s艂owa jak kompozycja, perspektywa czy uk艂ad. Mo偶na wi臋c powiedzie, 偶e Sontag podchodzi do analizy problemu zdj臋膰 bardziej jak do malarstwa, cho膰 wyra藕nie wskazuje w jednym z esej贸w, 偶e mi臋dzy tymi dwoma sztukami mo偶e by膰 wi臋cej r贸偶nic ni偶 podobie艅stw, je艣li si臋 na nie pojrzy z odpowiedniej strony. W swoich rozwa偶aniach nie po艣wi臋ca technicznej stronie fotografowania zbyt wiele miejsca, gdy偶 to co najwa偶niejsze kryje si臋 na zdj臋ciach, a nie w sposobie ich robienia.
Sontag w mistrzowski spos贸b konstruuje w ka偶dym eseju sp贸jny wyw贸d. Nierzadko korzysta z dygresji, niekiedy tak szerokich, 偶e a偶 trudno uwierzy膰, 偶e uda jej si臋 wr贸ci膰 do pocz膮tkowego tematu. A jednak wraca, 艂膮cz膮c ze sob膮 wiele w膮tk贸w poruszanych w refleksyjny spos贸b i zamyka ca艂o艣膰 klamr膮 kompozycyjn膮, kt贸ra zachwyci czytelnik贸w zwracaj膮cych uwag臋 nie tylko na tre艣膰, lecz r贸wnie偶 form臋 eseju.
W typowy dla siebie spos贸b autorka dr膮偶y temat, wyciskaj膮c z niego wszystko, co si臋 da. Zauwa偶a dualizm fotografii i pisze o niej w spos贸b, kt贸ry sugeruje, 偶e tak wielkiego i skomplikowanego zjawiska nie da si臋 jednoznacznie oceni膰. Fotografia uwra偶liwia, ale i znieczula. Pokazuje zar贸wno pi臋kno 艣wiata jak i jego brzydot臋. Wzbogaca i zuba偶a widzenie rzeczywisto艣ci. Sontag jest w swoich rozwa偶aniach bezwzgl臋dna. Jej spostrzegawczemu oku, nic nie jest w stanie umkn膮膰. Ocenia, analizuje i snuje refleksje, zmuszaj膮c odbiorc臋 jej pracy do ci膮g艂ego zastanawiania si臋 nad podejmowanym problemem. Co wa偶ne, z tymi tekstami mo偶na polemizowa膰. Nie ma tu konkretnych tez czy te偶 my艣li, za kt贸rymi nale偶y pod膮偶a膰. Autorka zadaje raczej pytania, poddaje niekt贸re zjawiska w w膮tpliwo艣膰, sama szuka odpowiedzi, staraj膮c si臋 patrze膰 na fotografie i jej autor贸w z jak najszerszej perspektywy.
Niekt贸rzy mog膮 twierdzi膰, 偶e teksty Sontag s膮 ju偶 nieaktualne. Ale czy rzeczywi艣cie? Bez w膮tpienia wynalezienie aparatu fotograficznego, a nast臋pnie u艂atwienie do niego dost臋pu zmieni艂o nasze postrzeganie 艣wiata. Inaczej patrzymy na otaczaj膮cych nas ludzi, natur臋, miasta, w kt贸rych mieszkamy i wszystko inne, co nas otacza. Za pomoc膮 zdj臋膰 staramy si臋 nie tylko utrwali膰 dany moment naszego 偶ycia, ale przede wszystkim go sobie przyw艂aszczy膰, podkre艣laj膮c a偶 zanadto jak kruche i ulotne s膮 chwile. Mo偶e nie nosimy ju偶 ze sob膮 aparat贸w, lustrzanek czy kompakt贸w, bo wszystko, co potrzebne do wykonywania zdj臋膰 mamy w telefonach. To z kolei w pewnym sensie zuba偶a i wiele zabiera ca艂emu rytua艂owi fotografowania. Zdj臋膰 jest tyle, 偶e otaczaj膮 nas z ka偶dej strony. O tym wszystkim Sontag pisze w swoich esejach i a偶 dziw bierze, jak wiele mo偶na z nich wsp贸艂cze艣nie wyci膮gn膮膰.
Spostrze偶enia Sontag mo偶e nie s膮 z punktu widzenia dzisiejszego czytelnika rewolucyjne albo 艣wie偶e. S膮 jednak trafne, a przede wszystkim, mog膮 niekt贸rym u艣wiadomi膰 wag臋 problemu, o kt贸rym pod艣wiadomie ju偶 kiedy艣 si臋 my艣la艂o. Nie od dzi艣 wiadomo, 偶e cz艂owiek potrafi zmieni膰 perspektyw臋 patrzenia na jaki艣 problem, gdy kto艣 inny opowie mu o nim w odpowiedni spos贸b. A prace Sontag mo偶na nazwa膰 w艂a艣nie takim opowiadaniem. Wida膰, jak wiele zaanga偶owania i pasji autorka zostawi艂a na kartach tego zbioru. 艢wiadczy o tym przenikliwo艣膰, ogromna wiedza oraz staranno艣膰 prowadzenia wywodu.
Eseje podejmuj膮ce problem fotografii wzbudzaj膮 podziw. Dla wielu mo偶e by膰 to o偶ywcza lektura, napisana lekkim, lecz b艂yskotliwym stylem. Dla innych z kolei, eseje b臋d膮 zachwyca膰 przede wszystkim aktualno艣ci膮 spojrzenia, mo偶e zmusz膮 do zastanowienia si臋 nad niekt贸rymi aspektami fotografii, kt贸ra po lekturze prac Sontag wydaje si臋 zjawiskiem wr臋cz kontrowersyjnym. Nikt inny nie potrafi w taki spos贸b zadawa膰 pyta艅 i zach臋ca膰 do rozmy艣la艅 na temat znaczenia i warto艣ci obraz贸w, jednocze艣nie przybli偶aj膮c kilka sylwetek mistrz贸w ich utrwalania. Wydaje si臋, 偶e takich prac nie wystarczy przeczyta膰 raz. Wracaj膮c do nich, mo偶na w ka偶dym eseju odkrywa膰 co艣 nowego. A wracanie do pi贸ra Sontag to sama przyjemno艣膰.
Profile Image for Shaghayegh.l3.
386 reviews54 followers
April 22, 2019
亘丕 鬲氐賵乇蹖 讴賴 丕夭卮 丿丕卮鬲賲 禺蹖賱蹖 賮乇賯 賲蹖鈥屭┴必� 亘蹖卮鬲乇 乇賵蹖 賳讴賵賴卮 毓讴丕爻蹖 賵 噩丕蹖蹖 讴賴 毓讴爻 鬲賵蹖 丿賳蹖丕蹖 丕賲乇賵夭 丿丕乇賴 賵 鬲睾蹖蹖乇 賵 讴賲乇賳诏 讴乇丿賳 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲貙 賲丕賳賵乇 丿丕卮鬲. 丕賲丕 鬲噩乇亘賴鈥屰� 噩丕賱亘蹖 亘賵丿 禺賵賳丿賳卮貙 丿蹖丿 丿蹖诏賴鈥屫й� 亘賴 丌丿賲 賲蹖丿賴 賵 賲賲讴賳賴 毓讴爻鈥� 诏乇賮鬲賳鈥屬囏й� 亘毓囟丕賸 亘蹖禺賵丿 乇賵夭賲乇賴 乇賵 丕夭 爻乇 丌丿賲 亘賳丿丕夭賴貨 讴賴 讴丕卮 噩丕蹖 丕蹖賳貙 讴丕乇蹖 亘乇丕蹖 讴賱蹖卮賴鈥屬囏й� 丕蹖賳爻鬲丕诏乇丕賲蹖 亘丕 賲賵囟賵毓丕鬲 孬丕亘鬲 賲蹖鈥屭┴必�.
Profile Image for Katie.
74 reviews40 followers
September 23, 2007
On hold. While fascinating, 'every sentence contains a thought' is not as fun as it sounds.
Profile Image for Z. F..
314 reviews88 followers
February 17, 2023
"Cameras are the antidote and the disease, a means of appropriating reality and a means of making it obsolete."

I'm an amateur photographer; after the written word, photography is my favorite creative medium to work in. At one point in here Sontag theorizes about the differences between the writer's craft and the photographer's, and her explanation also gets at why I personally find the two forms complementary:

Nothing could be more unlike the self-sacrificial travail of an artist like Proust than the effortlessness of picture-taking, which must be the sole activity resulting in accredited works of art in which a single movement, a touch of the finger, produces a complete work. While the Proustian labors presuppose that reality is distant, photography implies instant access to the real. But the results of this practice of instant access are another way of creating distance. To possess the world in the form of images is, precisely, to reexperience the unreality and remoteness of the real. (from "The Image-World")


On Photography doesn't have an overarching argument or thesis, but if there's one idea that recurs throughout the book it's that photography, ostensibly the medium which comes closest to capturing objective reality, is in fact only "real" in a very tenuous (and, at times, insidious) sense.

This in itself wasn't a revelation for me. I think anyone who handles a camera in any sort of creative capacity learns pretty quickly that, even before you bring Photoshop into the equation (and Sontag was writing in 1977, long before photo-doctoring became as easy or inescapable as it is now), photography always comes with an element of manipulation and selective framing鈥攍iterally鈥攐f the truth. To give an obvious but fairly benign example, a few weekends ago I was out taking photos in a local cemetery with a lot of graves and monuments from the turn of the last century. I was, predictably, going for a Gothic feel of gloom, decay, and antiquity. This mood was threatened by the very modern array of roads, telephone lines, billboards, and buildings which completely surrounded the cemetery, so naturally I framed all of my shots to leave out these inconvenient reminders of the wider world. The resulting photos are "real"鈥擨 didn鈥檛 add or subtract anything from them, just selected what angles to shoot from鈥攂ut they still give only a partial and misleading view of reality.

But Sontag's book is far more than a simple confirmation of what I already knew. What it is instead is best laid out by Sontag herself, in her foreword:

It all started with one essay鈥攁bout some of the problems, aesthetic and moral, posed by the omnipresence of photographed images; but the more I thought about what photographs are, the more complex and suggestive they became. So one generated another, and that one (to my bemusement) another, and so on鈥攁 progress of essays, about the meaning and career of photographs鈥攗ntil I'd gone far enough so that the argument sketched in the first essay, documented and digressed from in the succeeding essays, could be recapitulated and extended in a more theoretical way; and could stop.


That first essay, "In Plato's Cave," is stunning, containing in less than 20 pages more ideas more thoughtfully elucidated than many whole books by other authors. This was my first time reading Sontag, and I was immediately starstruck; one of my first thoughts was "Wow, she must be one of the most intelligent people I've ever read." This is an impression which comes from more than just her knowledge of the subject (though her knowledge is encyclopedic). It's the talent she shows for the whole process of Thinking, first synthesizing so much raw information, then teasing out seemingly endless insights from it, then conveying those insights in concise, assured, and easy-to-grasp language. It would be pointless to try to summarize all of her ideas here, since nearly every sentence is rich with them, but major themes of the book include photography's inherent subjectivity and relationship to "the real," the almost mystical ability of the camera to freeze and prolong time, the complications that arise when considering photography as an "art" along the lines of painting, the aesthetic ideals which have motivated photographers throughout the form's history, the inseparability of the photographic process from technological developments, the implications of living in a world increasingly inundated with photographic images, and the moral and ethical questions raised by the acts of photo-taking and photo-viewing.

This last area, the ethics and morals of photography, generated some of the most surprising conclusions for me. It's not like I'd never thought about the ethical responsibilities of photographers鈥攎ost of us have seen photos of starving children or wartime atrocities and wondered why the cameraperson didn't intervene, have debated about the ways in which various types of images do or should proliferate online, have considered how the male gaze, the white gaze etc. inform the images we see, and so on鈥攂ut often Sontag seems to question the morality of photography as a whole, to imply that there's a kind of innate harm in the act of photo-taking itself. At times I started to wonder if she was, in fact, anti-photography鈥攚hich startled me not only because of my own photographic interests, but because I don't think it's a stance I've ever seen anyone else take, or at least anyone from Sontag's general period and social context. In the end I think that's a reductive way of putting her argument鈥攕he's more interested in challenging the assumption that photographs are value-neutral or somehow transcend ethics altogether, and also seems to enjoy puncturing the lofty claims of certain influential photographers about their craft鈥攁nd in fact I learned afterwards that Sontag herself was in a longterm romantic relationship with the photographer Annie Leibovitz. But that doesn't make passages like this any less provocative:

Whatever the moral claims made on behalf of photography, its main effect is to convert the world into a department store or museum-without-walls in which every subject is depreciated into an article of consumption, promoted into an item for aesthetic appreciation. Through the camera people become customers or tourists of reality鈥攐r 搁茅补濒颈迟茅蝉, as the name of the French photo-magazine suggests, for reality is understood as plural, fascinating, and up for grabs. Bringing the exotic near, rendering the familiar and homely exotic, photographs make the entire world available as an object of appraisal. (from "The Heroism of Vision")


Personally I found the provocation bracing, and was even able to smirk a little as Sontag leveled her criticism at photographers and projects which I myself have also been critical of, like Michael Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip or Diane Arbus's portraits of "freaks." But she's also inspired me to pause and reflect a moment before lifting my camera(phone) to get snapshots I wouldn't have thought twice about before.

On the other hand, the book does start to lose a little steam in the second half, as themes begin to repeat and the treatment becomes increasingly esoteric. As invigorating as Sontag is, she's also one of those writers who can be tiring to read much of at one go, simply because of the sheer mass of ideas and the level of intellectual engagement she asks of her reader. I was reminded a little of David Foster Wallace's essays: Sontag's sleek prose is, IMO, way more pleasant to read than Wallace's dictionary vocab and unwieldy sentences, but there's a similar sense of bobbing along on a flood of thought from someone with a seemingly inexhaustible intellect and reference pool. (If possible, read with Google at hand; it helps immensely if you can see the images she mentions.) Finally, I was disappointed by what struck me as a rather Orientalist juxtaposition of western vs. (supposedly) Chinese attitudes towards photography in the last essay, based mostly on negative Chinese press reactions to a documentary on China by the Italian filmmaker Antonioni. I don't know enough to offer any sort of in-depth critique of Sontag's position, but it's a pretty lengthy section, isn't especially crucial to the overall argument of the piece, and read to me as both generalizing and condescending.

Overall, though, I found this a fascinating collection. Naturally this subject matter was especially resonant for someone already interested in photography, but given the central role of photographs (and their descendants, films and videos) in virtually all facets of modern life I think the conversation Sontag is starting here is truly applicable to everyone. It's clich茅 to say that a book is "more relevant now than ever," but nearly half a century after publication it's pretty incredible to consider just how prescient Sontag was and how timeless her line of questioning has proven in a world which has now given us such innovations as digital and cellphone cameras, Photoshop, the selfie, the livestream, the screenshot, the sext, the meme, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Zoom, Google Images, Google Maps, internet porn, execution videos, deepfakes, drone photography, the GoPro, dashcams, doorbell cams, bodycams, 24-hour news coverage, facial recognition software, and photorealistic AI-generated images, to name just a few. In the internet age many of us live our lives predominantly by way of images, images which are more pervasive, varied, and unfiltered than ever before in human history, and rarely stop to think about what that means or how it affects us. After reading Sontag, it's impossible to avoid those thoughts.

4.5 stars rounded up.
Profile Image for 賮賴丿 丕賱賮賴丿.
Author听1 book5,520 followers
February 10, 2017
丨賵賱 丕賱賮賵鬲賵睾乇丕賮

賰賳鬲 賯丿 賯乇兀鬲 賰鬲丕亘 爻賵夭丕賳 爻賵賳鬲丕睾 (丕賱丕賱鬲賮丕鬲 廿賱賶 兀賱賲 丕賱丌禺乇賷賳)貙 賵丕賱匕賷 鬲賳丕賵賱 丕賱氐賵乇 丕賱賲賱鬲賯胤丞 賵丕賱鬲賷 鬲賲孬賱 丌賱丕賲 丕賱丌禺乇賷賳貙 賮賷 丕賱丨乇賵亘 禺丕氐丞貙 噩賲丕賱 匕賱賰賲 丕賱賰鬲丕亘 噩毓賱賳賷 兀毓賵丿 賱賯乇丕亍丞 賰鬲丕亘賴丕 丕賱兀賯丿賲 (丨賵賱 丕賱賮賵鬲賵睾乇丕賮) 賵丕賱匕賷 鬲賳丕賵賱 丕賱鬲氐賵賷乇 亘卮賰賱 毓丕賲貙 賲丨丕賵賱丕賸 鬲丨賱賷賱 鬲丨賵賱丕鬲賴 賵賲丿賶 鬲兀孬賷乇賷鬲賴 毓賱賶 丕賱廿賳爻丕賳賷丞貙 賲賳 禺賱丕賱 賲氐賵乇賷賳 賲禺鬲賱賮賷賳 賰丕賳鬲 賱賴賲 賲卮丕乇賷毓 鬲氐賵賷乇賷丞 賲鬲毓丿丿丞.

丕賱賰鬲丕亘 噩賲賷賱 賵賱賰賳賴 賷丨鬲丕噩 廿賱賶 賳賮爻 賯乇丕卅賷 毓丕賱賺
Profile Image for Diana.
318 reviews9 followers
February 16, 2014
This is a classic book of essays about how photography reveals so much about society, politics, history, and our attitudes towards preserving the image and the potential "truth" inherent in a photograph.

I don't read much nonfiction, and this was originally for a class, but there isn't a single person I wouldn't recommend this to.
Profile Image for Neil.
1,007 reviews737 followers
December 10, 2020
Just over 3 years ago (I am writing this at the end of 2020), I calculated that my pension fund was large enough to allow me to retire from professional work in the HR Department of a large IT company and, instead, declare myself a self-employed nature/wildlife photographer. In doing this, I turned a 30 year hobby into a sort of job. I completely understand what a privileged position I am in: doing what I have always dreamed of doing but with no pressure to make a living from it.

This book has been on my Kindle for a long time as one of those books about photography that I promised myself I would read with all my new found spare time once I stopped spending 50-60 hours a week working. Of course, I found that taking photographs is a lot more fun than reading about photography, but I have this year managed to get round to reading Barthes鈥� 鈥淐amera Lucida鈥� and this.

I鈥檓 really not sure what I make of Sontag鈥檚 somewhat rambling thoughts. It may just be that Sontag鈥檚 logic has eluded me, but the book does seem to meander a lot. Along the way, though, it throws out a lot of stimulating ideas. I have seen some people comment that reading this book is likely to make you feel guilty about taking photographs. I found exactly the opposite. With all its talk comparing photographs to reality (the idea of a photograph being more real than reality is a recurring thought through the whole book), comparing photographs to paintings (discussing the age-old question, 鈥淚s photography art?鈥�), and with a plethora, maybe even a surfeit, of one-liners that could keep a camera club busy talking for a long time, I found it made me more interested in the possibilities of photography, even if that seems to fly in the face of what often feels like a negative (no pun intended) viewpoint that Sontag presents.

It has to be said that a lot has happened in the world of photography since Sontag wrote this in the 1970s. I would really like to see the thinking here extended, as examples, to the world of digital photography and the opportunities for image manipulation that presents, and to the concept of the 鈥渟elfie鈥� (perhaps especially the way people process images of themselves before allowing the world to see them - I can imagine Sontag would have a field day with that!).

In the end, this is an interesting book to read but not as mind-blowing as I imagined it was going to be. That said, here are a few quotes that have stayed with me:

The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say. 鈥淭here is the surface. Now think鈥攐r rather feel, intuit鈥攚hat is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.鈥�

That most logical of nineteenth-century aesthetes, Mallarm茅, said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph.

This is still the aim of most amateur photographers, for whom a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful, like a woman, a sunset.

Life is not about significant details, illuminated (by) a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are. (There are quite a few typos in the Kindle edition, so I鈥檝e added the word that seems to make most sense in brackets).

Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism.

鈥 widely agreed-on diagnosis: that a society becomes 鈥渕odern鈥� when one of its chief activities is producing and consuming images鈥�
Profile Image for Jeremy Allan.
204 reviews37 followers
January 9, 2012
Like many people before me, I felt a certain dread the next time I tried to pick up my camera after reading this book. Susan Sontag's incredible, penetrating critique of photography doesn't just cast into doubt the value of the activity of taking a photograph, but it posits some of the irrevocable changes that the advent of this technology has had on our world and how we experience it. Anyone who reads this having previously nurtured an interest in photography at any level should experience a degree of nausea while reading. But at the same time, Sontag is genius enough to avoid condemning photography. She reveals the fissures, but doesn't try to fill them with some moral ballast. More than anything, she does what good critics do, she makes observations that open into still greater questions. I only wish she were still around to answer some of them now as we are fulling in the digital age of photography, where the concept of reproducibility has given way to something even more radical.
Profile Image for Robert Isenberg.
Author听23 books60 followers
January 2, 2009
Q: Why is this book called "On Photography"? Given that not one word of this book says sustains a single positive sentiment about cameras and their usage, why wouldn't it be called "Against Photography," or maybe "Photography is the Downfall of Human Kind."

This is not at all the book I thought it was. Given its most quoted statement, "To collect photographs is to collect the world," I expected a somewhat romantic vision of the photographic craft. Little did I know that Sontag credits photography with dehumanization, desensitization to violence and graphic imagery, and our alleged inability to experience reality in three dimensions. With every passing page, my jaw dropped further; how could a woman who was romantically involved with Annie Liebovitz abhor photography so much?

"On Photography" doesn't have any urgency at all, and though the essays are beautifully written, they strike me as the most misguided of her accomplishments -- melodrama posing as criticism.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,629 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.