Sample Reflection Paper: Vulnerability

Bianca Oberg 

Friday Paper # 2 

2/10/11 

Vulnerability 

In comparing William Eggleston and Susan Sontag, I have found an interesting component. At one point in her essay, Sontag describes photography as such, “To take a photo is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” I believe in Eggleston’s Guide, Eggleston is showing the lives of his subjects, and they all seem to be vulnerable. Many aspects of each photo can show their vulnerability with the way his subjects are positioned in the frame. Another way he shows vulnerability is with the facial expressions of his subjects and whether or not they are making eye contact with the camera. Lastly, in Eggleston’s photos his people are in motion, and the candid aspect to the photographs enhance the feeling of vulnerability.

In a lot of Eggleston’s photos you see only bits and pieces of people. For example, in this photo:

The man with his feet being the only part of him in the frame makes him look vulnerable. It implies that he is lying down on the ground, and resting his feet up on the side of the car. The people around him are looking downward at him. I believe this makes him seem vulnerable because typically when people are lying down, they are relaxed and have their guard down. This picture makes the person lying down seem even more vulnerable because the other people are in a car and if they had not seen him they could have run him over.

(another picture could be boy lying down in the garage)

Another example of how Eggleston’s photos portray vulnerability is through facial expressions. The facial expressions in Eggleston’s Guide are both serious and perplexed or in the middle of talking. I believe this shows vulnerability because the people in the pictures are not showing any real emotion. Their faces are blank and half of them are not even making eye contact with the camera. An example photo would be this:

It also goes along with the previous paragraph because there is a person who is half in the frame as well. Again, the boy is lying down in a relaxed position leaving him open and vulnerable. His eyes are looking towards what I assume to be a television because his attention is so consumed into that one area in the room.

According to Sontag “…To photograph is to violate by seeing someone as they never see themselves, turning them into objects that can be symbolically possessed…” This applies to the candid aspect of William Eggleston’s photographs. For example, in this photograph:

It doesn’t look like this woman even knows the photo was being taken, and she is in the middle of calling someone, or so it seems. She is vulnerable because of the way she is positioned in the frame and she is not making eye contact with the camera.