Rhetorical Analysis Of On Photography By Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag once wrote, “To collect photographs is to collect the world.” In her article entitled “On Photography,” she overviews the nature of photography and its relation to people using it. Sontag discusses photography’s ability to realistically capture the past rather than an interpretation of it, acting as mementos that become immortal. Continuing on to argue the authenticity of photography and how its view points have shifted from art into a social rite.With the use of rhetorical devices, Sontag scrutinizes the characteristics of photography and its effects on surrounding affairs; throughout this article Sontag reiterates the social rites, immortality and authenticity of photographs, and the act of photography becoming voyeuristic. With the use of the rhetorical devices pathos, appeal of emotion, ethos, appeal to ethics and credibility, and logos, appeal to logic, Sontag successfully persuades the audience to connect and agree with her views.

Argument 1: the social rites associated with having a camera and taking

pictures (fill void)
Before photography was even considered an art, it was considered uncalled for.

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

closely.
Social status is considered important in many peoples eyes. Everyone is seeking to find something to fill the voids they have. Utilizing pathos, Sontag states that photographs are analogous to knowledge, continuing on to entail that knowledge is power. People strive to have power, it puts them above others who do not obtain it. As a result, photographs reinstate peoples views, giving them the extra confidence associated with power.
Argument 2: immortality and authenticity of photographs; the characteristics of photography and its effects on surrounding affairs;
Photos absorb and express knowledge of the world’s realistic past and gives a projection of the future. People fear the unknown, both past and present, but the pictures are evidence that something happened. As opposed to writing, painting, and drawings, photos hold factual insight that is everlasting. The image that is exposed was not interpreted, but “miniatures of reality” (174). Sontag utilizes words such as, “evidence” and “incontrovertible truth,” and “selective transparency,” to emphasize her opinion on the authenticity a photograph possesses (175). With the use of personification Sontag gives the camera the ability to do things the same way people can. For example,The camera and its photos can justify, incriminate and aggravate a action and or the people around them. Expressing that photos are used as proof that something happened or once existed, “a token of presence” (177 Sontag).
A photo formally confirms that an event happened. As Sontag wrote, “photography came along to memorize, to restate symbolically,” they are used to capture the moment so it is never forgotten (177). To explain, if some one were to look back at the event from memory it could be extremely different that what the photo captured. The memory would be a mere interpretation the event, with out evidence to support it. Sontag moves on to suggestions that taking photos is, in a sense, “ soothing,” and takes away the chances of their being confusion of the memory.