susan sontag final
DESCRIPTION
On Photography, in Platos caveTRANSCRIPT
Megan Wilkerson
English 118c
Fall 2012
English 118 2
Visual Literacy in the Digital Age
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WILKERSON
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Susan Sontag’s collection of essays entitled “On Photography” has been accused of being everything from “prophetic genius” to “melodrama posing as criticism.” Many of the statements Sontag makes can be considered outrageous, offensive, and cynical. Critics have contemplated the reason Sontag entitled her collection “On Photography” as opposed to “Against Photography,” given the lack of
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positive sentiment she presents on the subject, which she argues can be dehumanizing and desensitizing in some cases. Nevertheless, her innovative and controversial commentary on the subject revolutionizes the way we view photography as she expands on the ways in which the proliferation and popularity of photography has changed and continues to change the way we interact with the world and its experiences.
INTRODUCTION
IN PLATO’S CAVE “IT ALL STARTED WITH ONE ESSAY—ABOUT 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”- SONTAG
CONTENTS:
EVIDENCE
TOURISM
TWO
NON-INTERVENTION
THREE
DESENSITIZATION
FIVE
SIX
DEHUMANIZATION
SEVEN
IMAGE-JUNKIES
MEGAN WILKERSON
PROFESSOR STEFANS
ENGLISH 118C
14 DECEMBER 2012
INTRODUCTION
EIGHT
NINE
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“The inventory started in 1839
and since then just about
everything has been
photographed, or so it seems.”
Susan Sontag begins her essay
by describing photographs as
a collection of the world. This
inventory of images she
describes has taught us a “new
visual code,” changing the
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way we view what is around
us, and even determining what
we choose to look at. One of
the greatest strengths of
photography, Sontag argues, is
its power to furnish evidence:
“Something we hear about, but
doubt, seems proven when
were shown a photograph of
it.” Consider the alarming
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photographs of emaciated
Holocaust victims from Nazi
concentration camps. We have
learned about these atrocities,
but seeing them has a much
greater impact. These horrific
images are now part of our
inventory and serve as
evidence to these events.
PHOTOGRAPHY AS EVIDENCE
“HUMANKIND
LINGERS
UNGENERATELY IN
PLATO’S CAVE,
STILL REVELING, ITS
AGE-OLD HABIT, IN
MERE IMAGES OF
THE TRUTH”
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To Sontag, photography
should serve as evidence that
something happened, that
something exists, or that it
existed at one point in time.
“The camera record
justifies.” For this reason,
photography is detrimental to
Beaurocratic societies.
It serves as a form of control
and surveillance: ”The
camera record incriminates.”
Sontag describes
photography as “a social rite,
a defense against anxiety,
and a tool of power.”
Photography and family life
go hand-in-hand, because the
memorializing of
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achievements and milestones
in life is something that we
naturally want to savor. Sontag
argues that it is suspicious for a
family to not have a camera in
their household, namely
families with young children.
The action of photographing
ceremonies and special events
has become one of the
components of the ceremony
itself. For example, it would be
very uncommon to attend a
ceremony today that didn’t
include some sort of
photographing. Evidence
provides us with the truth, and
while many photographers are
concerned with the truth, they
are equally concerned with the
relationship between art and
truth. Sontag describes how
the members of the Farm
Security Administration
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photographic project from the
1930’s would take dozens of
pictures of their subjects until
they felt they had captured just
the right expression that
upheld their notions about
poverty. Perhaps Dorothea
Lange’s “Migrant Mother”, is
the most prolific of these
images.
“In deciding how a picture
should look, in preferring one
exposure to another,
photographers are always
imposing standards on their
subjects.” Sontag explains
that, even though the camera
serves to capture reality in a
sense, not merely interpret it,
photographs can be
considered an interpretation of
the world as a painting or a
drawing would be.
“EVEN WHEN
PHOTOGRAPHERS ARE
MOST CONCERNED WITH
MIRRORING REALITY,
THEY ARE STILL
HAUNTEDBY TACIT
IMPERATIVES OF TASTE
AND CONSCIENCE.”
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“THE MAN ADJUSTING HIS LENSE TO TAKE JUST THE RIGHT FRAME OF HER SUFFEREING, MIGHT JUST AS WELL BE A PREDATOR, ANOTHER VULTURE ON THE SCENE.”
(RIGHT) THIS POSE WITH THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA HAS BECOME PROLIFIC TO THE POINT OF CLICHE. HOW MANY PICTURES JUST LIKE THIS DO YOU THINK HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE INVENTORY?
TOURISM & PHOTGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHS AS A COLLECTION OF THE WORLD
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“A way of certifying experience, taking
photographs is also a way of refusing it—by
limiting experience to a search for the
photogenic, by converting experience to a
search for the photogenic, by converting
experience into an image, a souvenir.” Tourism,
perhaps more than anything, adds to our
inventory of images. Yet Sontag argues that
tourists don’t just take pictures while they are on
vacation to use as indisputable photographic
evidence of their visit. Photographs “also help
people to take possession of a space in which
they are insecure.” The act of taking pictures on
a trip can alleviate some of the disorientation
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that comes with travelling. Many tourists,
Sontag claims, feel more at ease when they
put a camera between themselves and what
is unfamiliar to them. Photography is
another way to give shape and control to an
experience. “The method especially
appeals to people handicapped by a
ruthless work ethic—Germans, Japanese,
and Americas. Using a camera appeases the
anxiety that the work-driven feel about not
working when they are on vacation and
supposed to be having fun. They have
something to do that is like a friendly
imitation of work: they can take pictures.”
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fact that the photograph exists, it is evident that
the photographer chooses the photograph.
“Even though incompatible with intervention in
a physical sense, using a camera is still a form of
participation.” By photographic a subject or
situation, Sontag argues, the photographer is not
just passively observing, they are encouraging
whatever is happening to keep happening.
Sontag essentially describes photography as
having an inhumane aspect to it. ”To take a
picture is to have an interest in things as they
are, in the status quo remaining unchanged…
including, when that is the interest, another
person’s pain or misfortune.”
PHOTOGRAPHY & NON-INTERVENTION
“THE MAN ADJUSTING HIS LENS TO TAKE JUST THE RIGHT FRAME OF HER SUFFERING, MIGHT JUST AS WELL BE A PREDATOR, ANOTHER VULTURE ON THE SCENE.” -ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
Kevin Carter was a South-African photojournalist who took this picture of a starving child and vulture in 1993. Although he won a Pulitzer Prize for this photograph, he was harshly criticized for taking the picture rather than helping the girl.
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Sontag points out that photography is
essentially an act of non-intervention.
“The person who intervenes cannot
record, the person who is recording
cannot intervene.” In many cases, the
photographer has the choice between
the photograph and a life. Given the
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Especially with such
shocking photographs of
the suffering and the
victimized, one would
assume a strong emotional
reaction from the viewer.
Yet Sontag explains how
these images of horror that
exist within our inventory is
problematic. “Photographs
shock insofar as the show
something novel.
Unfortunately, the ante
keeps getting raised—
partly through the very
proliferation of such images
of horror.” The amount of
exposure to these types of
images causes a certain
amount of desensitization.
This emotional reaction,
which Sontag refers to as
our “quality of feeling” to
images of the suffering,
depends on the degree of
our familiarity with the
images. The more one is
exposed to certain
photographs, the less
shocking it is each time
they view a similar image.
“Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more—and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize.”
PHOTOGRAPHY & DESENSITIZATION
Sontag accuses
pornography of the same
offense. She argues that “the
shock of photographed
atrocities wears off with
repeated viewings, just as
the surprise and
bemusement felt the first
time one sees a
pornographic movie wear
off after one sees a few
more.” The amount of
suffering and horror in the
inventory has given us a
sense of familiarity with
these images, Sontag
describes. This familiarity
makes the horrible seem
more ordinary.
“To suffer is one thing; another
thing is living with the
photographed images of
suffering, which does not
necessarily strengthen
conscience and the ability to
be compassionate. It can also
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Sontag claims that the camera is sold as a
sort of “predatory weapon.” Of course, the
camera is not capable of killing, yet Sontag
refers to being photographed as a “soft
murder” as she describes the dehumanizing
aspect of photography: “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 the can never
have; it turns people into objects that can be
symbolically possessed.” Consider the
photographs taken by paparazzi
photographers. They make a career out of
what Sontag calls the “soft murder.” They
intrude, trespass, distort, and exploit. In this
sense, they are predators with their
cameras, always violating.
THE DEHUMANIZING ASPECT OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
In her essay, Sontag examines some of Diane
Arbus’ ideas on the nature of photography,
namely its “naughty” nature. “I always
thought of photography as a naughty thing to
do—that was one of my favorite things about
it. Arbus describes that when she first tried
photography she “felt very perverse.” Yet
Sontag argues that to take a photograph
requires some distance between the subject
and the photographer. “The camera doesn’t
rape, or even possess, though it may
presume, intrude trespass, distort, exploit,
and, at the farthest reach of metaphor,
assassinate—all activities that, unlike the
sexual push and shove, can be conducted
from a distance, and with some detachment.”
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“Photography 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.” Sontag describes the
great value placed on images
in our society. We don’t
realize just how much we rely
on photographs to give us
information. “They tell one
what there is; they make an
inventory.” Yet Santag
explains that there is a
disconnect there is another
side to photography that
people use more as a
“fiction.” “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
THE NEW GENERATION OF IMAGE-JUNKIES
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irresistible form of image
pollution.” Sontag points
out that we don’t realize
the extent to which we are
bombarded with
photographs. Today,
especially in advertising
and social media, images
control and direct.
Imagine if today we were
cut off from all ability to
capture images. Virtually
every aspect of our lives
would change.
“Mallarme said that
everything in the
world exists in
order to end in a
book. Today
everything exists to
end in a
photograph.”