Susan Sontag: On Photography

Susan Sontag wrote about how photographs are “experience captured.” Although they can be used as evidence, and are accepted as the fastest way to validate something, photographs are “narrowly selective interpretation[s],” since photographers are so purposeful about how they take their photos. Sontag argues that photos are as subjective interpretations of the world as drawings or paintings are, because any one photo can be interpreted innumerable different ways.

I think it is an astute observation that she calls photography mainly a “social rite,  a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power.” Most of us take photos to remember. Some use photos to influence. Ads and media can both be powerful uses of photos.

She talks about how curious it is that major historical events, sporting events, spectacles, and crimes are all equalized by the camera lens. I think it is interesting how she says photographing people is violating them, in some ways, because it is capturing them as they can never see themselves.

I like her comparison to television: TV “is a stream of underselected images, each of which cancels its predecessor. Each still photograph is a privileged moment, turned into a slim object that one can keep and look at again.” I agree. Film is the movement created by multiple photos “canceling each other out,” and when they stop doing so, the film is over. Photos are captured in a state of constant stillness, so they can be enjoyed and experienced with no time limit attached.

I like how she says photos cannot explain themselves, and they can be interpreted all manner of ways, speculated upon, and fantasized about.

It’s crazy to think about how true in today’s society, “Everything exists to end in a photograph.”