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Notes and quotes - Summary On Photography
StuDocu Summary Library EN
Studocu University - USA
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Notes and Quotes: Susan In Susan view, both cave images and photographs represent images of the (p. 3). Through the essay Sontag uses the term (almost) interchangeable with the term but she disregards defining either of them. As a reader, I was left with the impression that for Sontag or deprived their conceptual power and philosophical engagement, stand for nothing more than what we can see. In this case, the difference between what we can see with own (reality) and what we can see the (photograph) is reduced to the differences between the human eye and the body Except such technicalities, a or in faithfully representing would be explained through the ability or intention of its auteur to capture this reality. However, comparison between cave images and photographed ones acknowledges their distinctive natures and, also, the dissemblance between their specific educational abilities educated photographs is not like being educated older, more artisanal (p. 3) in its attempt to explore the reasons behind their influences upon viewers. The main reason identified lays in a figure: the hastily continuously growing number of photos, irrefutably overriding the number of cave images, is the one diverging term of confinement in the cave, our (p. 3). The photographic eye, argues Sontag, is characterized a (p. 3): its start, photography implied the capture of the largest possible number of (p. 7). Photographing becomes compulsory and addictive. In interpretation, photographs are empowered their impressive number to introduce a new consisting of a and an of seeing: they are teaching us both the structural rules of looking at a photo and the guiding ones is worth looking at and what we have a right to (p. 3). cave images were as close as the prisoners could see reality, and a philosopher was needed to free himself (or herself), go into the light and discover that such images were just shadows of a praised but unknown reality, and return afterwards to enlighten the others, as well. But, since its beginnings, photography has set a different relation with reality as the physical world, comparing to cave images. Although, at least in some of its forms, it has claimed to represent an exact copy of (various aspects) of reality, photography has acknowledged the distinct existence of the physical world, and has not attempted to conceal it. insistence on photos as material objects, whereas it overlooks their significance as insubstantial, digital images, put them into a contrast relation with the ethereal shadows of cave, as they can be possessed, collected and altered: the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads as an anthology of images. To collect photographs is to collect the (p. 3). As objects, photos do not only capture reality, but they also construct it, or at least define it: are perhaps the most mysterious of all the objects that make up, and thicken, the environment we recognize as (p. 3). In addition to capturing reality, they are part of it the photo as a material object becomes a piece or an element of the physical world: images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or (p. 4). is very suggestive here: photographs are miniaturizing the physical world in order to become part of it as objects how treacherous is that? Photographs represent, therefore, a possession of space in the sense of physical, geographical world, that cave images could never personificate: help people to take possession of space in which they feel (p. 9). Additionally, photographs express a possession of time, too. The simple gesture of taking a photo, from a Polaroid snapshot to an elaborate set up photograph, signifies the carrying out of an act of possession of time, as the camera captures the evolution of its subject(s) in a particular, unique moment of time: give people an imaginary possession of a past that is (p. 9) emphasizes Sontag. Once the photograph is concluded, the moment immortalized the image is already turned into past. It is this changeable nature of time that photography ultimately challenges: photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another (or mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to relentless (p. 15). Distance, temporal or spatial, brings with it a sense of desirability and unattainability: when we are nostalgic, we take (p. 15), says Sontag. is a nostalgic time right now, and photographs actively promote (p. 15). But, as cave images, photographs attempt to offer knowledge now provide most of the knowledge people have about the look of the past and the reach of the (p. 4). Despite the fact they can provide evidence photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like in the p. 5), the information photos can bring is not valued outside the control institutions in the situations in which most people use photographs, their value as information is of the same order as p. 22). However, photographed images can capture events and create them. In our world, unlike cave, the photographing eye has the freedom to deem what it sees as worthy enough to be captured: is an Event: something worth seeing and therefore worth (p. 11). If viewers were acknowledging the cave images in a strictly manner, photography, in standpoint, can signifies but also participation (as observation, complicity and encouragement): if incompatible with intervention in a physical sense, using a camera is still a form of participation. Although the camera is an observation station, the act of photographing is more than passive observing To take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged (at least for as long as it takes to get a picture), to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing including, when that is the interest, another pain or (p. 12). Still, may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach of metaphor, assassinate all activities that, unlike the sexual push and shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some (p. 13). If protagonist acknowledges reality in quite an innocent manner, the act is a ravaging one: is something predatory in the act of taking a picture. To photograph people is to violate them, seeing them as they never see themselves, having knowledge of them they can never it turn people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as the camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a sublimated murder a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened (p. Similar to image, photography lack the power to create a moral position, but in contrast to the former, it can reinforce one: can help build a nascent (p. 17). Although photographs capture the real, physical world, and not just reflections of reality, the of an image is turned into a one familiarity: suffer is one another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize. An event known
Notes and quotes - Summary On Photography
Course: StuDocu Summary Library EN
University: Studocu University - USA
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