susan sontag on photography context
Lying on a sofa with her legs propped up on one end and her hair almost flowing off the edge; the languid, almost faint Sontag, exudes the tired, the familiar and the ordinary. In place of sharper distinctions in On Photography Sontag restates one of her old and still sensible requests; in the final essay, as overwritten as the rest, she calls for a silence to the shutters, a plea for “an ecology not only of real things but of images as well.” On Photography is against photography. Questionably, David Reiff’s criticism of the photographs as “carnival images of death” holds little truth. Strassheim, a former forensic photographer, translates her professional skills into the realm of art (almost similar to Leibovitz), whereby her work Evidence, is a collection of photographs taken at 140 homes across the United States that were once homicide crime scenes. Up until I was recommended by my last tutor to read ‘On Photography’, I hadn’t ever heard of Susan Sontag. A social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power and control—these are the urges supporting the mass art form photography. Thus, a historical analysis into the subject of death is pertinent here. Both text and context are still beholden to a vocabulary and set of assumptions that need to be re-examined. These quotes, like the book itself, do not make any particular reference to women or women’s social position in the modern world, but the sum total of Sontag’s observations do have direct application to women’s issues. This mental dying is unlike Araki’s obstinate acceptance, but rather, the visual impact would compel audiences to retain the death of Sontag as pure memory, and not by physical reminders in itself. More often than not, this highly stylized, almost stale and overused characteristic underscores the figure-of-power at ease, and in Finley’s case, her tender, pale figure perhaps also enunciating eroticism. I picked up the book shortly before leaving for the United States, understanding it … Prima facie, the photograph of Sontag fits perfectly into the oeuvre of celebrity assignments that Leibovitz took, Sontag herself a celebrity by her own right (this drawing itself back to the discourse of the ethics behind publishing “celebrity images” of Sontag). The audience is allowed to recall, in this visual representation of sleep and death, not only the passing of their own loved ones, but to contemplate on the fine line between life and death, and hence the ephemeral qualities of life. Contemporary photographic is also highly objectifying. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford. For the camera, while it can artfully lie or be lenient, is an expert of cruelty. Word Count: 373. It allows us to see things that would be otherwise impossible to see. Indeed, photography provides a platform for expression – to signify emotion and as a result, overcome oneself through such expression. This harks back to the photograph of Sontag at Hedges Lane. The earliest theory of art, that of the Greek philosophers, proposed that art was mimesis, imitation of reality. Yet, the glass box also creates both the physical and psychological proximity between audience and subject, thus transcending the boundaries between voyeurism and engaging in the art piece. Curation in itself, as illustrated by Araki, with no semblance of emotional input, alienates the audience through the sense of distance already established – between object and audience. Sontag discusses photography as a medium for the representation of war and violence in contemporary culture. The Karen Finley picture is highly idiosyncratic of Leibovitz’s celebrity works: saturated with stark colour contrasts. I will be expounding upon this in greater analysis through the essay. In the photographer who snaps fifty shots in hopes of one beautiful image, however grotesque or ugly the subject, Sontag has found her mentor. 1970) world. Susan Sontag claims in her passage, “On Photography”, that photography limits our understanding of the world. Upon closer analysis, the photograph of Sontag cannot be taken as a mere assignment. Word Count: 241. 7 Angel McRobbie, While Susan Sontag lay dying, Open Democracy, Available: http://www.opendemocracy.net/people-photography/sontag_3987.jsp [Accessed: 28th September]. In 2001 she was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work. Anyone interested in the social roles of photography … Susan Sontag claims in her passage, “On Photography”, that photography limits our understanding of the world. Posted on March 20, 2015 by cheri1996. Summary The third essay, "Melancholy Objects," continues Sontag's exploration of the role of loss and commodification in photography. It is at this point that the peculiar question of the value of art arose. Meanwhile, philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer remarks that since the outer appearance is the picture of the inner, the expression of the face reveals the whole character. 5) that not only corresponds directly to Leibovitz’s photography of Sontag’s death, but also questions again the depth of photographer/subject relationships, as well as the idea of voyeurism in death photography. Sontag writes in her essay, “On Photography”, that the “…ambiguous relationship [between photographer and photograph] sets up a chronic voyeuristic relation to the world which levels the meaning of all events”. And the sad effect of this assault is the democratization of all experiences and things by both turning them into images and imposing standards for their consumption. 8) features a splatter of blood glowing across the wall, draped above an unmade bed now occupied by its new inhabitants. On Photography presents a new translation of that essay along with a number of other writings by Benjamin, some of them presented in English for the first time. Here however, a sense of distance between subject and “audience” is established from the very nature of forensic photography itself which demands “as one of the primary documentation components, systematic, organized visual record of an undisturbed crime scene”. 1 (Spring, 1985): 72-87. I found this a very interesting read and it helped me reflect on my experiences of aftermath photography whilst working for the police. This is further reinforced by the “breathing space” given to Sontag, whereby the photograph does not consist only of her image, but has also taken into account the purview of her surroundings, which gives context and the sense of Sontag resting peacefully. 6 Elizabeth Hallam, Jenny Hockey and Glennys Howarth, Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity, (Routledge: London), 1999. It is a scene of momento mori, where the veneer of homeliness is juxtaposed with the figure of death, looming in the shadows, the inhabitants often unaware of its presence. (Cf. To superimpose the ghost of those tragic moments that infringed upon the boundaries of life and death, and to realize the evidence of which is embedded on the walls and obscured from plain sight, renders the ostensibly innocent over-layer of the wall into something a haunting, all at once more menacing and sinister. For Leibovitz, the “glass box” here is represented through photography itself which articulates both the same distance and invitation to the audience. 207 . Intriguing and quietly eerie, these images reflect forensic photography in that each of the photographs is a documentation of the evidence at a crime scene. He used his reading of the essays as a stimulus to his own thinking about photography. Swinton also further illustrates this distinction between life and death through the glass box that creates both an alienation of the audience from the art work, while allowing them to also partake in this “cinematic performance”. Thus, audience participation may be reduced to voyeurism, whereby what is perceived is framed and objectified. As a corollary, the sense of distance created through photography is also leveled by the invitation for audience participation. CHAPTER 1 CRITIQUE (Plato’s Cave) I’m always suspicious of thinkers who always invoke the Plato Cave analogy (I’m with Nietzsche in … by Susan Sontag (2004). This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.” Last Updated on May 7, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. And suddenly we realize that we have already seen and heard every bit of it. The ability of photography as medium to provide a platform for human response to death can be seen by comparing the emotional responses of both Leibovitz and Araki. along with some of John.B Thompson’s other theories, with some reference to Susan Sontag’s work on photography. While this highly personal photograph, that draws immediate focus towards Sontag as the centerpiece, might be enough for the discerning eye to realize the level of familiarity Leibovitz and Sontag shared, it is still difficult to accurately pinpoint the exact nature of their relationship. There are three answers, each of which con According to Sontag, Christianity took away the central place of beauty in human excellence ideals (1). New York: Dell Pub lishing Company, 1977. 16 Women in Photography, Angela Strassheim, Available: http://www.wipnyc.org/blog/angela-strassheim [Accessed: 1st November]. 2 David Rieff, Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir, (New York: Simon & Shuster, 2008), p. 150. $3.95 (paper). Like scenes out of film noir, photography leads to the immortalization of something already immortalized – blood leaves a permanent stain even when emotions, humans, and even memory has faded away into oblivion/non-existence. For reading On Photography is a not-so-merry merry-go-round-and-round. Susan Sontag and her love of photography. Disregarding the obvious suggestions of violence in Strassheim’s photographs, her series is a twist on vanitas, and the silent insinuations of an imminent death that surrounds people, even in their state of comfort and stagnancy of everyday life. Here, she explains her photography and sets the context for the juxtaposition and sifting between intimate photographs and professional portraits in her exhibition. Thus, coming back to Leibovitz’s photograph of Sontag’s death, two important key ideals are expressed here, namely death (and its relation to photography), and the relationship between subject and photographer. The first work following the introduction, that catches the audiences’ eye, is a picture of Susan Sontag at Petra, Jordan (1994) (Fig. ©2021 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If photographs, as other art objects, bear moral implications, then photographic images can be read in more progressively ideological ways—ways that can suggest, for feminists, a reclaiming of the historical past. Hence, death itself is obscured by the image, cleaning/refurbishing and time and Strassheim invokes the continuity of life even after the tragedy and horrors of homicide has come to pass in a place. The backdrop is nearly identical – a side table with books, and a heater unit. 3 Caitlin McKinney, Leibovitz and Sontag: picturing an ethics of queer domesticity, Shift Queen’s Journal of Visual and Material Culture, Available: http://shiftjournal.org/archives/articles/2010/mckinney.pdf [Accessed: 1st September]. Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” was first published as a series of essays in “The New York Review of Books” and then in book form in 1977. al., Henry Lee’s Crime Scene Handbook, New York: Academic Press, 2001. For the most part, she describes the relationship between photography and capitalism in society. Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933. It is a set of essays on the "philosophy" of picture-taking and the meaning of photography in the modern (ca. As usual, when I am thinking of pursuing something, I turn to books. The former gave rise to much criticism, especially with regards to privacy and the rights Leibovitz had in publishing something that Sontag herself had no say in. Plato’s classical, derogatory attitude toward images as shadows has been updated and overturned. Essays engaging and thoughtful have a number of ethical challenges in photography, the photograph of can! Found this a very interesting read and it helped me reflect on my of... 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