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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
"needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution. poignant longings for beauty, for an end to probing below the surface, for a redemption and celebration of the body - all these elements of erotic feeling are affirmed in the pleasure we take in photographs. but other, less liberating feelings are expressed as well. it would not be wrong to speak of people having a compulsion to photograph: to turn experience itself into a way of seeing. ultimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it, and participating in a public event comes more and more to be equivalent to looking at it in photographed form. […] today, everything exists to end in a photograph."
tenho algumas infinitas coisas para dizer sobre esse livro. que não são nada quando comparadas com tudo que sontag disse aqui.
muito muito especial
5/5
tenho algumas infinitas coisas para dizer sobre esse livro. que não são nada quando comparadas com tudo que sontag disse aqui.
muito muito especial
5/5
با تصوری که ازش داشتم خیلی فرق می‌کرد؛ بیشتر روی نکوهش عکاسی و جایی که عکس توی دنیای امروز داره و تغییر و کمرنگ کردن واقعیت، مانور داشت. اما تجربه‌ی جالبی بود خوندنش، دید دیگه‌ای به آدم میده و ممکنه عکس گرفتن‌های بعضاً بیخود روزمره رو از سر آدم بندازه؛ که کاش جای این، کاری برای کلیشه‌های اینستاگرامی با موضوعات ثابت می‌کرد.
Insights from 1977 that feel even sharper almost 50 years on, but beyond the scope of photography itself w/ the rise of social media, AI, the breakdown of subcultures into micro-aesthetic-cores… and highkey required reading for me as someone with 200 GB of icloud storage, a camera roll that gets 50+ pinterest-ready pictures every time I step outside, and 4 hours daily screentime on instagram where I post monthly photo-dumps. It’s hard to reflect on this image addiction without reminding myself of an out-of-touch newspaper comic or a melodramatic ‘phones bad’ short film—these works get taken up by social media, whatever emotional insights in there are destroyed by the algorithm—but Sontag’s writing does gives me some food for thought. Maybe I’ll put my camera down for once!
informative
reflective
I can't believe that I went through an entire undergrad career in fine art with a focus on photography and painting and never read any Sontag! This work was so intellectually inspiring and challenging. Published in the 70s, this work anticipates everything we have today. I can't wait to read her 2003, Regarding the Pain of Others.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Insightful recollection! Reminds me to back to my artist days & motivates me to pick up the camera again!
challenging
informative
tense
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
There’s no shortage of insight to be had in this collection, but unfortunately Sontag’s aphoristic and often polemical style seemed to leave some of the more interesting thoughts underdeveloped. Also, as a practicing photographer, there are a large number of instances where Sontag demonstrates a severe lack in genre awareness along with an amazing ignorance of photographic process.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Violence