#On photography

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader, 2024)

[onenakedfarmer]

SUSAN SONTAG On Photography

For [Diane] Arbus, both freaks and Middle America were equally exotic: a boy marching in a pro-war parade and a Levittown housewife were as alien as a dwarf or a transvestite; lower-middle-class suburbia was as remote as Times Square, lunatic asylums, and gay bars. Arbus's work expressed her turn against what was public (as she experienced it), conventional, safe, reassuring--and boring--in favor of what was private, hidden, ugly, dangerous, and fascinating. These contrasts, now, seem almost quaint. What is safe no long monopolizes public imagery. The freakish is no longer a private zone, difficult of access. People who are bizarre, in sexual disgrace, emotionally vacant are seen daily on the newsstands, on TV, in the subways. Hobbesian man roams the streets, quite visible, with glitter in his hair.

[pnwander]

and then sometimes you go outside to feed the birds, and an owl is napping overhead.

[sunriserollercoaster]

on photography, susan sontag

[fearofmusic1979]

Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977), page 63

[jem-in-eyee]

“Cameras began duplicating the world at that moment when the human landscape started to undergo a vertiginous rate of change: while an untold number of forms of biological and social life are being destroyed in a brief span of time, a device is available to record what is disappearing. The moody, intricately textured Paris of Atget and Brassaï is mostly gone. Like the dead relatives and friends preserved in the family album, whose presence in photographs exorcises some of the anxiety and remorse prompted by their disappearance, so the photographs of neighborhoods now torn down, rural places disfigured and made barren, supply our pocket relation to the past.”

“A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs- especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past are incitements to reverie.”

—“On Photography”, by Susan Sontag

[before & after photographs of the old half broken house of a Migrant Sindhi Family that was positioned in the centre of my housing society. It was broken down a while ago. The first picture, (furthering Sontag’s understanding) depicts the ‘pseudo presence’ of the house & the second one is ‘a token of absence’.]

[1/n]

photograph of jamnaben jamariya’s house, after death.

[2/n]

[esintheluebird]

"On Photography" delves deep into the depths of photography and challenges the reader to think deeply.

In this respect, it is a true masterpiece. Sontag argues that photography is not merely an art form but also a powerful tool for perceiving and interpreting the world.

She reveals photography's documentary nature and aesthetic dimension, as well as its ability to freeze moments and, in a sense, manipulate them.She emphasizes that photography, traditionally seen as a witness tool, can also be wielded as a tool of power.

"On Photography" is an important reference for anyone interested in the societal role of photography and media.

Sontag's profound analyses and thought-provoking comments have the power to fundamentally alter the reader's perception of photography. This book illustrates that photography is not just about capturing moments; it encapsulates a broader significance.

[satellitesunset]

everytime ocean voung drops a piece of writing im reminded why he's one my favourite authors.

[booksaboutmurder]

"To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time."

Susan Sontag

[celluloidwickerman]

Presence, or Polaroid Ghosts (Part 2)

Part 1 Histories Polaroids are shackled to nostalgia. Its aesthetic perfectly embodies the past tense, especially in the cold light of today’s digital world. The presence captured, however, makes even the oldest photos whisper of the living moment as it happened. As an object, they are driven by this contradiction. Being so close to our lives charges these images with supernatural static. But,…

[onenakedfarmer]

SUSAN SONTAG On Photography

To suffer is one thing; 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.

[pnwander]

good morning, owl.

[sunriserollercoaster]

on photography, susan sontag

[fearofmusic1979]

Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977), page 62

[daily-spooky]