Photography Susan Sontag Summary

The multiplication tables we learn in grade school or the phone numbers of close relatives is something we can remember quite easily, but when it comes to recollecting a family gathering or trip from years back, it is a struggle to remember the fine details of the event. These are the situations where photography plays an important role, with the simple touch of a button leading to a permanent physical record of the event. For example, I have been on many trips in my lifetime, yet I find it hard to reminisce upon my specific childhood trips to Yellowstone and Disney World. A look into a photo album, however, can flood me with memories of large mountains in Wyoming, or a family lunch with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. With those photos, my original experience becomes more than just a trip, it becomes a symbol of the past.

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 Notes on “Camp,” Susan Sontag cites fifty-eight characteristics of “camp sensibility.” She says the ultimate statement Camp statement is, “it’s good because it’s awful …Of course one can’t always say that. Only under certain conditions, those which I’ve tried to sketch in these notes-” the sensibility of an era is not only its most decisive, but also its most perishable, aspect. One may capture the ideas (intellectual history) and the behavior (social history) of an epoch without ever touching upon the sensibility of taste which informed those ideas, that behavior. Rare are those historical studies – which do tell us something about the sensibility of the period (Sontag, 11).

Although a memory may deteriorate over the span of years or even decades, a photograph will last a lifetime. Images are more than an object to have for safe keeping. In his article, “We Are A Camera,” Nick Paumgarten discusses the uprising of the popular recording device known as the GoPro. This device is used to record events and experiences from different perspectives, whether that is from underwater or zip lining through a forest in a first-person view. Moreover, videos and photography allow people to capture images to reminisce about past experiences, to share these moments with others, and even remember those whom you have lost.

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 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 allow 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.

A photograph is a powerful tool for life. A single, unchanged image of reality can be utilized for a variety of situations. For one, one photograph could decide the lifestyle in the foreseeable future of a person that committed a crime. Furthermore, one photograph could reveal the horrors of a particular event. On another note, one photograph could hold heartwarming memories forever. In addition, one photograph could stir a controversy that will have people debating whether an entity is real or not. Overall, as Susan Sontag mentions in her book Photograph, “Photographs furnish evidence.”(Sontag); in other words, whether if it is, good, bad, or misinterpreted, one photograph can be used as evidence that something in fact happened or is real.

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.

As this century fades into the past it is worth remembering that its course--in contrast to earlier times--has been chronicled by a visual narrative that relies on the attraction of photographs as means of storing

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

Another significant reason that has played a vital role in photojournalism of recent times is the emergence of imaging technologies. Imaging technologies has undoubtedly played a major part in the works of a photojournalist today. Based on earlier accounts on how photography itself is an inherent manipulation, the question is no longer directed on ‘how has imaging technologies manipulate photojournalism' but ‘how much more has imaging

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

The social sciences became so pervasive in the twentieth century they not only produced new additions to medical discourse, but completely shifted the means of enforcing power. The emergence of individualism and the importance that was placed on one's essential and core identity made it so power that was once externally imposed by physical punishment only, began to enforce itself by way of the individual. The internalization of surveillance, domination, and discipline created a society of self policing individuals. This self policing behavior is most evident among women, and unlike the bodily protest against domestic expectations and other inequalities; it is the internalization of these oppressions, however ultimately manifesting as illness

Susan Sontag said photographs sends across the harmlessness and helplessness of the human life steering into their own ruin. Furthermore the bond connecting photography with departure from life tortures the human race. (Sontag 1977:64)

Since its inception, photography has been used to capture moments in time all around the world. This wonderful technology has existed since ancient times, and has only improved in recent history, changing society in the process.

India’s charm was able to attract me, but not in the typical sense. My images consisted of the homeless woman who would stay outside my house as I got her a glass of water, the two stray puppies who would casually wander onto the porch in search of food, or the arrays of extravagant clothing. To me, these images caught the true essence of India; and therefore each time I looked back at these photos I was sent back to the humid, yet blissful, days in India. Photography taught me lessons about myself I had never acknowledged, it taught me to love and embrace the portions of me others did not understand. The beauty of photography, I realized, was hidden in its ability to gather beauty into one single, still image. Each photograph I took in India has become a steady reminder of the beauty ingrained in my culture and heritage—consequently, the place I previously attempted to cover, the part of myself which I aspired to bury, is now the place I attach myself to—I identify to India today far beyond anything