Susan Sontag turns a critical eye
on photography in her book “On Photography”. A collection of essays/critiques
on the craft written for the “New York Review of Books” between 1973 and 1977,
this book is a sheer burst of intelligent insights by one of the greatest
thinkers of our time. Astute observations on photographs by photographic
evangels of the past, this book can be regarded as an instant study of history;
of a society of varying cultures in line with the practice and purpose of the
taking pictures. While one may find her views enlightening, thought provoking
even and always leaning towards the radical, unpopular; characteristic of a Sontag
punch of confidence, conviction and wit, one may not always find ones self agreeing to everything. The fact that this is the very first
reference on criticisms on the craft, its value cannot be easily undermined especially
in the aspect of thorough education on “what” to observe and “how” to observe a
photograph. Those who share the passion will find a great purpose for this book
and those who wished to broaden their understanding or improve their visual
experience when viewing certain photographs will find this book useful as well.
Masters like Diane Arbus, Nathaniel West, Stiechenm, Alfred Steglietz, Edward
Weston, Moholy-Nagy (to wit a few) were brought up and whose style and technique were discussed and pitted against. Whether you are a
practicing photographer or a mere lover of beautiful pieces caught in a neat
cut of time by a nanosecond press of a button, one may refer to this book as an
academic and at the same time enlightening reference on the practice and
purpose of photography.
I have earmarked some passages
that I think were worth a thought or two.
****
“Whatever the camera records is a
disclosure—whether it is imperceptible, fleeting parts of movement, an order
that natural vision is incapable of perceiving or a “heightened reality”, or
simply the elliptical way of seeing.”
“In teaching us a new visual code, photographs
alter and enlarge out notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a
right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of
seeing. Finally, the most grandiose result of photographic enterprise is to
give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads – as an
anthology of images.”—In Plato’s Cave,
“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.”
“When we are afraid, we shoot.
But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.”
“The photographer is an armed
version of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalking, cruising the urban
inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of
voluptuous extremes.”
“ .... paper phantoms,
transistorized landscapes. A featherweight portable museum.”
“Photographs are .... clouds of
fantasy and pellets of information.”
“There is one thing that a
photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.” – Robert Frank, from
chapter Photographic Evangels
March 09, 2013
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