Susan Sontag Friday paper

Kelly Vanderley

English Comp 2:  Photography

“Friday Papers”



            Photography has grown its own form of art. As our society has bloomed with technology so has the fundamental qualities of photographs that make up the world around us. In Plato’s cave, an introduction reading to Susan Sontags book on photography she mentions the specific details of the Art and truth behind a photograph. To William Eggleston, photography is a system of visual editing among its other elements that an individual photographer can capture. For both, William and Susan, photographs allow the ability to express images around us as tangible objects that are to be collected and cherished.

            When Susan speaks of Art and truth in her first chapter she is reflecting the element of “mirroring reality”, and how every photographer has their own unique style in doing so. For William it is his lonely factor that highlights his lifestyle of Memphis and Mississippi. William uses his own characteristics through emphasizing the use of dull colours, off center objects, and subjects looking away from the camera- or with no expression at all. Other photographers create their own custom style that distorts their own perception of reality by adjusting or recreating physical aspects within the photograph itself.  Susan mentions in her book this process is called “just the right look on film,” every and any photographer who wants to capture quality images attempts it. Susan dwells on this effort because as an art form photographs who want their pieces to stand out pay attention to accustomed looks with appropriate timing, theme, and visual elements. By determining how much time and effort goes into a photograph the truth is found in the emotional appeal that comes out of it.

            The emotional impact isn’t the only part of a photo that makes us think, but the “message” that is in scripted in it as well. Each photo that is taken, whether it be by a professional photographer or a grandmother at a family reunion, we all take photographs that mean something to us. In our life time the camera has grown into its own social stimulus apart of the world around us. When the industrialization period came along in the 1840’s to 1850’s we see more pictures being taken as a social indicator of our societies interests’ of personal pleasure. I found this most interesting when reading In Plato’s Cave because it’s the truth! A Sociological study in France proves it! We are most likely to have a camera when we have children to capture their years of young and so on and so forth. However, the parallel to this study as well also proves that we are less likely to have a camera if we do not have children due to the social absences of that “message”. We use the camera as an exercise to indicate a specific event, in turn, giving us emotional appeal.

            Tourism is another huge element of photography that identifies the messages appeal of capturing ones own perception of reality. Picture taking has become an event in its self, according to Susan, and she’s right! Eggleston’s and all the photographers he mentions in his introductions as well have had their own trips where albums have been created, their life, their job for that matter, have become their documented reality. Photographing something is “converting experience into an image”, and has become a healthy way to express and always embed sentimental events. With any message that is crossed we all have our own perceptions of the world that create our understanding of the truth in art, and its magical simplicities within reality.