Sontag Essay

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Sontag Essay-Qualify
Susan Sontag’s essay on how photography has limited people’s understanding of the world contains many interesting points that can be agreeable while at the same time having few that I tend to disagree with. Photography can be good and bad; it can open our minds up to new cultures and experiences through its imagery. However, at the same time it can limit our understanding of the world around us and of the world around the image it is portraying.
Sontag makes the statement that the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more that it discloses. This may be true in some situations but does not necessarily apply to them all. Sontag is correct in making this statement when you apply it the way she did through her example of the photography of Krupp Works and how it shows us only a factory. When we look at this photograph, it explains to us nothing about Krupp Works. With no additional knowledge of the factory and no time effects applied to the photograph we are unable to comprehend what goes on inside Krupp Works in its entirety. The photograph only...

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