On photography written by Susan Sontag is a very interesting and fresh take on photography. It seems that every sentence had it’s own meaning, giving you the reader a different thought about how society works, politics, history, and how all these things come together because of a camera lens. “To collect photographs is to collect the world” she says, her analysis on how photography is part of the past, present, and future, as we can forever come back to the events of the past just by looking at a picture, it captures a moment being a biography of the past. Overall a beautiful picture is to be determine by the photographer, deciding the value of the picture, but the value of the image is forever trapped to be display by few, many or all.
The one thing I find most interesting in the book is the conversation between photography and painting. “Photography was painting’s mortal enemy” I find paintings to be great also but only captures what the artists is expressing then that’s it, while photography can give you a brief history of that moment captured saying “yes this did happen” its proof that sums up a picture. It’s a image that has life forever captured.
I would suggest to you that you would take your time reading this book as every sentence feels like something you should write down, you can find yourself a little lost on the history of different photographers and events she brings up, it can sometimes make you want to throw the book out the window. Overall I enjoyed the book, recommend to my classmates.