Susan Sontag

It is said that “The true content of a photograph is invisible, for it derives from a play not with form but with time”. This makes me think that the real content of a picture, which is what the photographer tried to express, is not evident to perceive unless an explanatory text is provided. In fact, I believe that our perceptions of pictures changes over time as the historical context do. In addition, our opinions are never fixed as they are influenced by our environment. Therefore, when looking at a particular picture at a given time, it is certain that our perception of it will be different in the future based on what happen between the first time and second time we saw it.

Photography gives you a small sample of reality, but these realities have been changed to what the photographer wants to present. However as Sontag stated, “Of course, photographs fill in the blanks in our mental pictures of the present and the past.” Pictures show proof that all of the history that we learn is true, but although it confirms that, pictures does not show us the entire picture of how people felt about the situation. For example, one might have a picture from WWII and show us the setting, but does that picture really show the feeling of the people? That is why we say that photography only goes as far as to how the photographer wants to show the

For this essay the works of Robert Draper, author of “Why Photos Matter,” and Fred Ritchen, author of “Photography Changes the Way News is Reported,” will be analyzed. Though both deal with the topic of photography, their take on the matter is very different. While Ritchen is a photographer who writes on “what professional photographers will be doing in the future,” Draper is a writer for the National Geographic writing on how the photographers of the magazine share “a hunger for the unknown.” Both writers, however, write on the topic of photographers having a deeper understanding of their subjects, Ritchen due to research and practice, and Draper because the photographers “sit [with] their subjects, just listening to them.” In both essays the need for a deeper understanding of the

Through the use of techniques and themes, a composer is able to create distinctively visual images when describing the setting and characters in detail which help us to understand and form meaning of what the composer is trying to convey in their texts. The use of techniques such as body language, symbolism, lighting, music and photographic background slides create distinctively visual images same with themes that are being used within the texts such as truth which is evident in the dramatic text ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ by John Misto, the song ‘Lose Yourself’ sang by Eminem, and the film ‘The Eye’ directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud featuring Jessica Alba. These three texts demonstrate how the responders are impacted and what is

In her passage Sontag makes an extreme statement. She claims that “one never understands anything from a photograph”. Her extremity through the use of the word “never” just goes to show that this untrue because I personally have understood things from photographs. In my AP BIology class we were working on a lab in which we were supposed to examine a leaf under a microscope and look for it’s chloroplast. My teacher explained how the chloroplast should look and still, me being a visual learner, I could not understand exactly what I was looking for. It was not until she showed myself and the class a photograph of the chloroplast under the microscope that a wave of comprehending “oohs” traveled around the classroom showing that we now understood what we had to look

In Freeman Patterson’s Barriers to Seeing, Patterson mentions a quote from Susan Sontag about cameras and experiences. Sontag writes, “‘A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it – by limiting the experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting into an image, a souvenir’” (Paragraph 12). Essentially, Sontag is elaborating how people are distracted from their surroundings and experiences to find a photogenic picture or to record what they think to be an experience. While the objective of photography is usually to capture an experience or feeling, many are instead obsessed with finding good lighting, searching for a good background, and are focused on taking the best picture to post on social media. In many cases this is very true, and I myself can see it in people’s photos as well as my own. In Freeman Patterson’s Barriers to Seeing,” he quotes Susan Sontag’s statement that one’s camera can be a barrier to seeing and experiencing a moment. Through other’s picture taking as well

In “Why We Take Pictures,” Susan Sontag discusses the increase use of technology and its ability to impact the daily lives of mankind. Taking pictures is a form of self-evolution that slowly begins to shape past and present experiences into reality. Sontag argues how the use of photography is capable of surpassing our reality by helping us understand the concept of emotion, diversity, and by alleviating anxiety and becoming empowered. Moreover, according to her argument, people are able to construct a bond between the positive or negative moments in life to cognitively release stress through reminiscing. Therefore, Sontag claims that photography itself can help with reshaping individual’s perspectives of reality by being able to empathize with the emotions portrayed through an image. Thus, giving

While Postman points out the literal meaning of photography is “writing with light”; the two are from completely different universes when it comes to public discourse (p. 71). Unlike typography, photography cannot offer assertions, make propositions and offers no commentary. As long as it is not an altered photograph, it has no choice but to be true (p. 73). Thus, the photograph is only able to capture a moment in time and does not have the ability to comment on that moment. Our author contends, where language presents the world as an idea, the photographs only option is to show the world as an object (p. 72). Whereas in language, the correct context requires consideration of what is said before and after, in photography there is no before and after, only the snapshot of time. Therefore, by its very nature photography is context-free (p. 73). As photography immersed itself in the American culture author, Daniel Boorstin called this “the graphic revolution.” Postman is unequivocal on the point that the traditional forms of information, news, and even reality itself received an impairment by this new focus on images. For examples, he cites billboards, posters and advertisements. He points to magazines Life, Look and several newspapers. The picture was the focal point, and the writing was forced to take a less dominate roll and sometimes done away with altogether (p.

Marcel Duchamp stated that "It was his achievement to treat the camera as he treated the paintbrush, as a mere instrument at the service of the mind” (Biography.com, 2017). In addition, the photogram might seem expressive and abstract, yet on the contrary, it is the precise medium to document the everyday objects in an unrepeatable and somehow uncontrollable way. The artist cannot predict how the selected objects will be recorded under the light sources that were tampered with. From the first glance, the image completely dissociated from its original subject, allowing one’s memory to fill the gap. Yet below its surface, the image is an accurate documentation that captured a moment of psychical intensity. It revealed a new visual experience, using objects in the simplest way. One can say that the use of this medium disclosed reality more preciously due to its invisibility and mysterious representation (The Museum of Modern Art, 2017).

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

Sontag claims that “photography is, a social rite, but it can also be a defense against anxiety and a tool of power (page 130).” She backs her claim by stating “photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possessions of space in which they are insecure.” (Sontag page 131). In other words, having pictures allows people to tell stories that may not be exactly true. I agree with Sontag because I have witnessed and experienced how pictures can hurt someone emotionally while empowering others.

One of these such claims is the fact of what photographs can’t do, which is narrate, and in the case of public photographs, are but “a seized set of appearances.” This is certainly true in the case of this photograph, which captures only a few seconds of a larger tragedy. By looking at this photograph, we cannot tell how the subject ended up on the train tracks, the reaction of anyone who witnessed the event, the subject’s occupation, social status, or even his name. He is reduced to colored pixels on the front page of a newspaper for all of New York City, if not the world, to see. He has literally become a seized set of appearances-- his last moments, something which should be private and restricted to his family and loved ones, was seized by the mere act of a clicking shutter. All else about the incident is lost, the perpetrator’s name and motive, the moments preceding it, are part of a narration that we cannot glean from this single photograph. What we as viewers do get is a feeling of being shocked and disturbed, pitying the victim and his family. Berger is correct-- this photograph on its own narrates nothing. But its power comes from the fact that this audience is familiar enough with the setting to create their own narration, to almost cathartically channel their own fears into this photo of Mr.

Although Sturken and Cartwright claim it is quite easy to fall for the misconception that photographs are “unmediated copies of the real world” (Sturken & Cartwright, 17), this is no longer true, if it ever was. While cumbersome, even before the advent of image editing software, it was possible to modify photographs. Furthermore, in contemporary society, we have completely lost faith in mass media representation; rarely do people expect images to be completely unmodified anymore. This is especially visible in western culture since people are pressured to conform into highly specific aesthetics where even a “natural” look is artificially crafted with makeup and digital filters. Even disregarding direct manipulation to a print through methods such as Photoshop, photographs are manipulated in such obvious ways, it almost seems absurd to point it out. The framing, lighting, and positioning are always adjusted by the photographer. Therefore, people themselves are a type of manipulation; a representative filter through which biases are imbued. In effect, Sturken and Cartwright’s conclusion that all camera-generated images bear an “aura of machine objectivity” (Sturken & Cartwright, 16) stemming from “the … legacy of still-photography” (Sturken & Cartwright, 17) is

Sontag's quote in The Heroism of Vision expresses that nobody looked beyond at a scene before them and said it was ugly to the point that they just needed to take a photo of it. Photographers, both amateur and professional, have generally looked to capture something beautiful or significant in their work however rarely expressed an interest for a picture due to its inherent

In Roger Scruton's Photography and Representation the author establishes the idea that ideal photography is not art. In the same breath he says that ideal photography is not necessarily an idea which photographers should strive, nor does it necessarily exist. Yet, he bases his argument upon the ideal. In reviewing his paper, I’ll take a look at why he painstakingly tries to make this distinction between ideal painting and ideal photography. His argument is based upon the proposition that photographs can only represent in a causal fashion, whereas painters create representational artwork via intentional relations. Scruton manages to create a solid argument, but in the end I’ll decide it is not a fair assumption to say that photographs