Plato's Cave By Susan Sontag Summary

Isiah Sanchez
Short Essay Response #3
Reid Kerr
23 September 2014
Sontag: “In Plato’s Cave”
As I take pictures of different views to portray Glendale Community College, the first thing that I noticed was the beautiful scenery that I have never seen before. The sunshine’s light casting perfectly shaped shadows, the campus’ mid-afternoon being noiseless, and the students who are either walking, laughing, studying, or just sitting, make the perfect setting of “College Life” at GCC. So I looked for the perfect setting where I could put all of these in a single frame. Soon, I got the perfect picture at the right timing just outside the San Gabriel Building.
The experience of finding a good setting for photography was really hard. I had to find

a good location where a good angle of a school building should be a good background for my photo. I walked all around the campus trying to imagine how each building would look like as my background. I also wanted to search for a place where most students are hanging out. While, I’m trying to snap a few shots for testing, I found it really awkward and trying not to be bashful because I was scared that I might irritate the people out. I knew that when taking photographs, I would really need to invade their privacy. Even if taking photos of people at GCC was quite embarrassing and unusual, I learned that the school has some unique scenery that I have never given attention to before. It was truly an experience for me to capture certain images of GCC because it opened my eyes on how beautiful GCC is through photography.
The essay “In Plato’s Cave” by Susan Sontag, her views about photography is a strong disapproval. She considers photography as an impending danger to the people and society. For her, photographs can be easily modified and misunderstood while people view these photographs. Sontag argues that photography has a powerful influence on people and it produces psychological effects, which is somehow intimidating. Photography can also have the motives of hidden desires behind each image, which can be really frightful. Her outlook about photography focuses on the severe effects of how society signals the consequences because of their dependency on photographs. Photography has a great caution because people don’t really know what is actually taking place while photographs are taken. Although photography has a good side and a bad side, it still depends on how the people would receive and judge so that these photographs would earn their trust.
In relation of my photography experience to Susan Sontag’s essay, I agree with her insights about the effects of photography that these images can be costly.

First, In the book, On Photography, the excerpt “In Plato’s Cave”, renowned novelist Susan Sontag asserts that photographs have falseness too. According to Sontag, “Photographs, which fiddle with the scale of the world, themselves get reduced, blown up, cropped, retouched, doctored, tricked out” (4). People might actually think that the girl with the laptop is actually studying really hard because she has a midterm exam tomorrow. But what others might think is that she’s just checking out her facebook and twitter because she’s bored and has nothing else to do. Even if people believe that the photo is true based on its appearance, it could still be completely wrong. Photographs can manipulate our minds and make us think in another perspective. Just because the girl looks busy with her laptop at GCC, it doesn’t certainly mean that she is studying hard for her test. Second, in “In Plato’s Cave”, Sontag argues that photography can be used in a harmful way to others. According to Sontag, people should be warned about photography because it is “predatory” since a captured image can be photoshopped or altered in a desired way while the victims remain unaware of these, in which they are “violated” and “possessed” by others (14). It is really disturbing for people who want to make fun of others, destroy their reputation or just

plainly degrade them. In the photo that I have, imagine if I have a friend before who became my enemy. I could photoshop the guy and the girl sitting at the chair and make them sit closer to each other and send them to the boy’s girlfriend so that the boy’s girlfriend would think that he’s cheating on her and soon break up just to get revenge. Clearly, a photo of anyone can be altered in a terrible way for the use of the obsessed or just a humiliating usage of it. Lastly, Sontag claims that photography presents more depth and meaning compared to life. According to Sontag, people are more likely to choose to photograph the scene rather than taking action to aid whoever is injured or in need of assistance to “immortalize” the scene, which is truly heartbreaking (11). Imagine the guy wearing a blue shirt in the middle of my photo is having difficulty from putting on his backpack because he might have a broken arm or some injury. Instead of me helping the guy out, I’d rather choose to take a photo of him struggling with his backpack. People do this because they think that they can never bring back the moment the same exact way as how they took the shot. Other people do this because in our society today, the recordings of events/scenes are important to commemorate. All of these are the costly causes of photography.
On the other hand, Sontag suggests that photography also has psychological effects on society.

According to Sontag, “It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power. Memorializing the achievements of individuals…” (8). Photography of family members is what cameras are made to do these days because we want to memorialize our loved one through their photographs. It becomes a social rite where photographs are used to unite families and keep them intact. Their achievements and successes in life are best distinguished through family pictures. And when it comes to family problems, these photographs lessens the worry as problematic people are always reminded that their families are always there to support them. Furthermore, Sontag explains that other people, especially the ones with psychological problems, use photography for hidden desires. According to Sontag, “The camera doesn’t rape, or even possess, though it may intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, … assassinate – all activities that… can be conducted from a distance… “ (13). Taking a picture of a person requires some distance, but one of the hundreds of reasons could be due to a person’s hidden fascination of others. Let’s say my photo was taken by an obsessed creep, he could be planning to use the photo either in a violent way or sexual way. There will always be that subconscious aspiration present when people aim the camera and then

shoot.
In conclusion, in “In Plato’s Cave”, Sontag basically contends that photography is not perfect because photographs can be inconsistent and so people would just misunderstood its essence. It just merely depends on how people would judge and interpret the message of the photographs of the world.