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cspoe 's review for:
On Photography
by Susan Sontag
On Photography by Susan Sontag was one of the finest collections of essays and criticisms on any one topic I’ve read in all my years on Earth. Fascinating, compelling, humorous and depressing, articulate, taxing, and more—this is an incredible study on the history, the art (the not-art), the reality, and the responsibility of photography.
I picked up this book as supplemental research material for my own writing, and I got a lot more than I ever bargained for. Sontag’s writing is deep, rich, and profoundly human in the way she draws you into a topic that you might have never believed to be as philosophical as she promises, and then sits with you as she peels back the layers, like an onion, until you’re left to reconsider everything you’ve ever learned about photography and moving images. I simply cannot believe this wasn’t assigned reading when I was in art school. It should be on the bookshelf of every student learning the craft and history of photography and film. Sontag breaks down the topic into six essays and shines a light into every nook and cranny until nothing is left unaddressed. Is photography art? Is it not art? Is the photographer part of the image? Do they have obligations, as an observer? In portraits? In landscapes? In times of war? Is it an insult to painting? Or a tool to be used?
Sontag refers to and quotes from some of the personalities throughout history I hold in highest esteem as she explores the nuances of photography, from Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, silent film star Buster Keaton, social reformer Jacob Riis, even one of the Western world’s great philosophical minds—Friedrich Nietzsche. Sontag touches on such sensitive and forgotten topics as mourning photography and death masks, and as a historian with a particular interest in the Victorian and Gilded Age practices of death and mourning, this was a joy to discover.
These essays are so tightly written and reach such a depth, that I would hope readers beyond photographers or historians or filmmakers would consider picking this book up. There is so much to learn, so much to consider when you look at the world around you—beauty is not inherent in anything, it is to be found—that you will be all the better for reading On Photography.
Sontag is brilliant.
I picked up this book as supplemental research material for my own writing, and I got a lot more than I ever bargained for. Sontag’s writing is deep, rich, and profoundly human in the way she draws you into a topic that you might have never believed to be as philosophical as she promises, and then sits with you as she peels back the layers, like an onion, until you’re left to reconsider everything you’ve ever learned about photography and moving images. I simply cannot believe this wasn’t assigned reading when I was in art school. It should be on the bookshelf of every student learning the craft and history of photography and film. Sontag breaks down the topic into six essays and shines a light into every nook and cranny until nothing is left unaddressed. Is photography art? Is it not art? Is the photographer part of the image? Do they have obligations, as an observer? In portraits? In landscapes? In times of war? Is it an insult to painting? Or a tool to be used?
Sontag refers to and quotes from some of the personalities throughout history I hold in highest esteem as she explores the nuances of photography, from Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, silent film star Buster Keaton, social reformer Jacob Riis, even one of the Western world’s great philosophical minds—Friedrich Nietzsche. Sontag touches on such sensitive and forgotten topics as mourning photography and death masks, and as a historian with a particular interest in the Victorian and Gilded Age practices of death and mourning, this was a joy to discover.
These essays are so tightly written and reach such a depth, that I would hope readers beyond photographers or historians or filmmakers would consider picking this book up. There is so much to learn, so much to consider when you look at the world around you—beauty is not inherent in anything, it is to be found—that you will be all the better for reading On Photography.
Sontag is brilliant.