"Photography Within The Humanities" - Susan Sontag

I am actually quite surrprised after reading this article. Several years ago, I remember reading one of Sontag's essays and being incredibily disappointed and very upset, from her views in photography; but after reading this, I found that she actually has a good outlook on topics in photography. Sometimes, I still pass judgement on her in the sense that she openely admits to not owning a camera, and never photographing anything, but still being so judgmental on photography, but after reading this, I really feel that she has a good grasp on the topic.

Sontag talks about how there is such thing as "photographic seeing." And it isn't something that every person has. She mentions that some people are able to see by means of the camera, and that people change their way of seeing "in the process of becoming habitual camera users." "The wolrd becomes a series of events that you transform into pictures, and those events have reality, so far as you have the pictures of them." With this theory of her's I could not agree more. I think a lot of people pass judgment when you say that you are in the photography field. They tend to think that it is something anyone can do. So, I was very impressed that Sontag was so knowledgeable about something that she has personally never done.

When I was reading her story about Richard Avedon, I was very surprised by his dilema. There have been so many times when I look at disturbing photographs, that I think to myself, does this photographer have a heart. But after hearing the Richard Avedon himself, had a hard time deciding, and that he didn't go to photograph those pictures to make money; rather he did it for himself, really kind of gave me a new perspective for some of these photographers. We talked in class about how theses photographers could take such disturbing photographs, and not have the heart to help, or whether in their situations they could do anything about it. This story kind of related to this discussion for me.

One other idea that I appreciated by Sontag was her comparisons between film and photographs. I agree with her when she stated that with film, the idea is in context, but a photograph is vulnerable. But, a photograph is and always will be more memorable that 2-3 minutes of film (or a whole film for that matter).