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In Sontag’s On Photography, she claims photography limits our understanding of the world. Though Sontag acknowledges “photographs fill in blanks in our mental pictures”, she believes “the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more than it discloses.” She argues photographs offer merely “a semblance of knowledge” on the real world. As technology advances, more and more images spread throughout the world quicker than ever before. A single search on Google presents millions of pictures at our fingertips. However, these easily accessible images do not enhance our understanding of the world. Rather, they limit our understanding while fooling us into thinking we are learning. Images “makes us feel like the world is more available than it really is.”
Today, our society has access to mankind’s collective knowledge with the internet. Constantly updated, the internet keeps everyone in the loop. If there is a traffic jam, Google Maps will notify you. If there is a new movie release, Fandango will ask to reserve tickets for you. If there is a limited-time sale, Amazon will email you. Information constantly bombards us. The internet moves fast, and we must try to keep up to stay in
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Pictures save time, improve efficiency and provide convenience. In order to keep up with the internet’s fast pace, pictures must possess simplicity. This simplicity allows us to quickly absorb information then move onto the newest meme on the internet. The more pictures we move through, the more internet we surf. The more we internet we surf, the more information we receive. With saving time, pictures also grant us convenience. Instead of buying a ticket to see the northern lights, we can google the different colors in the sky. Instead of visiting our friend, we see a picture on their Facebook wall and know that they are alive. Between running late and juggling responsibilities, pictures provides a rapid glimpse into a constantly updating
As the camera’s popularity grew, the use of it shifted from an art form into a social rite, a statement of authority and security. The act of taking photographs, and the photos produced, act as mementos or proof of the past. Photographs summarize an event all within itself, creating an immortal piece, allowing the people to grasp onto the ownership of area in which they feel insecure. On the other hand, Sontag states that the deed of taking photographs occupies the same need for “cosmopolitans […] as it does for lower-middle-class [citizens]”(177). With that being said, how can there be any power at all in photography, but a fake sensation we created from the act of photography to fill our insecurities. By tapping into the insecurities of the readers, Sontag forces them to connect with the words and consider their actions relating to photography more
Photography allows us to maintain memories and relish them whenever we desire. Although some advocates might argue that people are no longer enjoying experiences instead taking more pictures, in the essay, “Why We Take Pictures”, by Susan Sontag, she conflates that photography can be used as a defense against anxiety and a tool of empowerment. I agree with Sontag on the significance of photographs and how it allows us to store a part of our extended relatives so we are able to hold on the memories of family. Therefore, we must appreciate how photography allows us to manage anxiety, express feelings and remember our loved ones.
Practiced by thousands who shared no common tradition or training from the earliest days of taking photos, the first photographers were disciplined and united by no academy or guild, who considered their medium variously as a trade, a science, an art, or an entertainment, and who often were unaware of each other’s work. Exactly as it sounds photography means photo-graphing. The word photography comes from two Greek words, photo, or “light”, and graphos, or drawing and from the start of photography; the history of the aforementioned has been debated. The idea of taking pictures started some thirty-one thousand years ago when strikingly sophisticated images of bears, rhinoceroses, bison, horses and many other types of creators were painted on the walls of caves found in southern France. Former director of photography at New Yorks museum of modern art says that “The progress of photography has been more like the history of farming, with a continual stream of small discoveries leading to bigger ones, and in turn triggering more experiments, inventions, and applications while the daily work goes along uninterrupted.” ˡ
Sontag, Susan. "Essay | Photography Enhances Our Understanding of the World." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
If we stay so wrapped up in technology we can miss very important things that are happening around us.In the article “Can the Selfie Generation Unplug and Get into Parks?” Jonathan Jarvis says that “young people are more separated from the natural world than perhaps any generation before
“Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing, which means that, like every mass art form, 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” (Sontag 8). After reading this quote in my head multiple times, I started to realize that people use it for different purposes. When I took a photography class in college, it was under the category “art.” Which made me think of it as a form of art, when there are so many other ways to view photography. Sontag changed my opinion about photography after further interpreting her quote because to have a camera in our hand, being able to capture the world through our lens is to have a tool of
In chapter 1 “On Photography” Susan Sontag explains her point of view on photography and the way people have become dependent on images in various ways in the sense of experiencing the value of someone or something. Society believes that photography makes that experience something tangible, a part of the world that they can call their own. Photographers occasionally infringe their own preferences by choosing different lighting, filters, or angles in their pictures so they end up changing the reality outside of Plato’s cave. At the same time, Sontag expresses her feeling of dislike towards photography as a symbolic rape turning people that have been photographed into property because we have knowledge of them that they can never have back for
#1. The title of this photograph is called The Open Door. It was created by William Henry Fox Talbot between April and May 1844. The medium that was used in creating this picture is salted paper print from paper negative.
When going for a walk, a person takes in the beauty around them. On this particular day, the refulgent sun is extra bright, making the sky a perfect blue. White, puffy clouds fill the sky, slowing moving at their own pace. The wind is peacefully calm, making the trees stand tall and proud. There is no humidity in the air. As this person walks down the road, they see a deer with her two fawns. The moment is absolutely beautiful. Moments like this happen only once in a great while, making us wanting to stay in the particular moment forever. Unfortunately, time moves on, but only if there were some way to capture the day’s magnificence. Thanks to Joseph Niépce, we can now capture these moments and others that take our breath away. The invention of the camera and its many makeovers has changed the art of photography.
Susan Sontag was an American writer that was mostly active in writing about areas of conflict such as the Vietnam War. Sontag later wrote “On Photography,” a series of essay that changed how people viewed photography. Sontag changed the views of many people about the use of cameras. Instead of using cameras mindlessly, people now think about the impact cameras have. Sontag made people question the believability of photography and not to just accept every photo people see as reality. Sontag predicted the way photography will expand and how it will shape the future.
Novelist and essayist Susan Sontag draws a particularly interesting parallel between the Allegory of the Cave and photography in her essay In Plato’s Cave. “This very insatiability of the photographing eye,” writes Sontag, “changes the terms of confinement in the cave, our world. In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe,” (3). The camera, Sontag argues, makes what one is experiencing at any given point in time real, impervious to the decay of time yet nonetheless stands as a testament to its passage. Much like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave divided existence into the visible world and the knowable world, the act of taking a picture draws a line between the subject and the photographer, the image-world and the real
Sontag feels that photography endears itself to voyeurism, exploitation, and an imperceptible aggression. Sontag expresses this when she writes, “Still there's something predatory the act of taking a picture. To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by taking knowledge of them they can never have, it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.”, here Sontag shines a light on the often invasive nature of photography. Capturing an image is a way of symbolically capturing a part of that person, which is forever frozen in that moment recorded on film. Sontag also argues that photographing an individual is a way of participating in that person's eventuality (death). She writes “To take a photograph is to participate in another person's or things mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”, so essentially Sontag argues photographs serve as a physical reminder of the inevitable corrosion that time visits upon all things. To photograph a loved one, a pet, a cherished place or thing is an inadvertent reminder that, that person, place or thing will inevitably age, decay and cease to be. This appropriation is often done unintentionally but is appropriation nonetheless and aids in altering our outlook and
Clifford discusses the attachment of authors in their texts as intangible (1986:17). Whereas, MacDougall analyses limitations in ethnographic film as: ‘the camera can never be everywhere at once,’ and that visual anthropology can: ‘leave a significant gap in our understanding,’ (1978:12). Therefore, although socialisation into a certain society can limit the validity of anthropological practices it does not mean they aren’t valuable. If there was no editing or restraints to fieldwork, it could continue to be endless and no conclusions would ever be made. However as argued earlier, photography does give a good medium for the viewer to make their own assumptions about the piece and Sontag describe it as: ‘movies and television programs light up walls, flicker, and then go out; but with still photographs the image is also the object,’
The Internet’s influence on our lives has spread throughout. According a 2009 US Census survey 74% of Americans use the internet and have access within their household.A number that has increased every year since 1990 and will sure grow in the future. In this survey they relieved that they did various activities on the internet including social media, (Facebook and Twitter) researching and reading news articles, watching YouTube videos, shopping and so much more all can be done with a computer or Internet enabled phone. With this ease of use and convenience it casts a shadow upon the future of printed and broadcast information. The Web’s instant and vast knowledge bank has changed ...
Digital camera is a very important tool nowadays. People would always want to save their memories in the shape of pictures that will last forever. People were amazed when the first ever camera introduced back in hundreds of years ago. At that time camera consisted of large and impractical components and it was very hard to use. In fact, it even took quite some time to develop the pictures on the paper. But now there are some products of digital camera that are very easy to use and with its pocket-sized feature, one can carry it everywhere. There are several advantages of using digital camera: very easy to use, easy to carry on, instant feedback; which means one can immediately review the captured pictures and erase any pictures that they don’t like. One real advantage of digital camera is that one can share the pictures with other people easily thanks to the high speed internet connection. Before digital camera one has to print pictures, paying for postage, and waiting for the pictures to be delivered. Gone were that days since it is possible now to share the pictures online within minutes.