01 November 2010

In Plato's Cave. Susan Sontag.

There were definetly a couple things through out this article that struck out to me like the fact that she says "photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power." I halfway disagree with her on this. I do believe photography is a tool of power but I believe that photography is always going to be a practice of art. Infact, photography is the most powerful tool used in art because of how really are no constraints when creating a work of art. I believe that if the photographers intent is to create a piece of art, then who is to say that it is not art?

Sontag also states that "A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it-- by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting experience into an image, a souvenir." I don't believe that taking a photograph creates that kind of disconnection with an experience. By allowing ourselves to take that photograph, helps us relive that experience. Every time that I look at photos with me with my friends or family, it always seems to take me back on a journey through time. If anything the photographer it creates the experience by setting no limits.

She then goes on to relate photography to sex and violence. How camera's are a "fantasy-machine whose use is addictive" just like guns and cars. She makes it sound that picture taking is violating, "to photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed." I kind of agree with her on this to an extent because there are people out there who do take pictures without someone knowing then they go and use that photo for god knows what reason. A reason that could hurt someones feelings to the point in which that they feel that they are violated.

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