On  Photography:    Susan  Sontag  By:  Pilon  and  Grace  

Ques9on  1  Sontag   states   that   to   photograph   something   is  to  “appropriate”  it,  to  make  it  your  own.    Once  that  thing   is  “yours”  you  are  then  able  to  know  it.    Is  the  rela9onship  between  subject  and  ar9st  the  same  in  pain9ng  as  it  is  in  photography?    

             Sontag,  Page  4  

“I   can   enter   s9ll   further   into   such   details,   observing   that  many   of   the   men   photographed   by   Nadar   have   long  fingernails:   an   ethnographical   ques9on:   how   long   were  nails  worn  in  a  certain  period?    Photographs  can  tell  me  this  much  beLer  than  painted  portraits.”  

                           Barthes,  page  30    “But  print  seems  a  less  treacherous  form  of  leaching  out  of  the   world,   of   turning   it   into   a   mental   object,   than  photographic   images,   which   now   provide   most   of   the  knowledge   people   have   about   the   look   of   the   past   and  reach  of  the  present.”  

             Sontag,  page  4    

Ques9on  2  In   the  age  of  film  and  manual  processes,  photographs  were   considered   “evidence”,   “incontrover9ble   truth”.  Has   this   no9on   changed?   If   so,   what   are   the  responsible  factors  in  this  change?  

             Sontag,  page  5-­‐6  

 

“Photographs   furnish   evidence.     Something   we   hear   about,  but  doubt,  seems  proven  when  we’re  shown  a  photograph  of  it.”    “A  photograph  passes   for   incontrover9ble  proof   that  a  given  thing  happened”  

                             Sontag,  page  5    “Yet  the  mask  is  the  difficult  region  of  Photography.    Society,  it  seems,  mistrusts  pure  meaning:  it  wants  this  meaning  to  be  surrounded   by   a   noise   […]   which   will   make   it   less   acute.    Hence  the  photograph  whose  meaning  […]  is  too  impressive  is  quickly  deflected;  we  consume  it  aesthe9cally,  not  poli9cally.”  

                               Barthes,  page  36    

Ques9on  3    How  has  the  camera  “democra9zed  all  experience”?    

                       Sontag,  page  7-­‐8,  18-­‐19  

“Photographs   like   the   one   that  made   the   front  page  of  most  newspapers  in  the  word  in  1972  –  a  naked  South  Vietnamese  child  just  sprayed  by  American   napalm,   running   down   a   highway  toward  the  camera,  her  arms  open,  screaming  in  pain  –  probably  did  more  to  increase  the  public  revulsion  against  the  war  than  a  hundred  hours  of  televised  barbari9es.”  

                           Sontag,  page  18  

Ques9on  4  Considering  that  Sontag  was  in  a  rela9onship  with  Annie   Leibovitz   (1994-­‐2004),  does   that  make  her  opinion   more,   or   less   valid   than   Barthes,   who  focuses  on  gaining  knowledge  from  observing?  

Ques9on  5  What   are   the   results   of   the   socializa9on  (incorpora9on   in   to   the   everyday   of   everyman)   of  photography?  When  did  this  happen?  How  has  this  affected  the  no9on  of  “Art  Photography?    

                         Sontag,  page  8-­‐11  

“A   photograph   is   not   just   the   result   of   an   encounter   between   an   event   and   photographer;   picture-­‐taking  is  an  event  in  itself,  and  one  with  ever  more  peremptory  right-­‐  to  interfere  with,  to  invade,  or  to  ignore  whatever  is  going  on.”  

                               Sontag,  page  11      “[…]   put  me   infront   of   a   staircase   because   a   group   of   children   is   playing   behind  me,   they   no9ced   a  bench  and  made  me  sit  down  on  it.  As  if  the  terrified  photographer  must  exert  himself  to  the  utmost  to  keep  the  Photograph  from  becoming  Death.  But  I  -­‐already  an  object,  I  do  not  struggle.”    

                             Barthes,  page  14      “Posing  in  front  of  the  lens  (I  mean:  Knowing  I  am  posing  even  flee9ngly),  I  do  not  risk  so  much  as  that  (at   least,   not   for   the   moment).   No   doubt   it   is   metaphorically   that   derives   my   existence   from   the  photographer.”  

                             Barthes,  page  11    “when  I  discover  myself  in  the  product  of  this  opera9on,  what  I  see  is  that  I  have  become  Total  Image,  which  is  to  say  death  in  person.  The  Other  turns  me  into  an  object,  at  their  mercy,  classified  in  a  file.”  

                             Barthes,  page,14      

“Amer   the   event   has   ended,   the   picture   will   s9ll  exist  conferring  on  the  event  a  kind  of   immortality  (and   importance)   it   has   never   otherwise   have  enjoyed.”    

                           Sontag,  page  11    “This  word   retains,   through   it’s   root,   a   rela9on   to  “spectacle”  and  adds  to  it  that  rather  terrible  thing  which   is   there   in   every   photograph:   the   return   of  the  dead.”  

           Barthes,  page  9