What I learned from Sontag that has always stuck with me is her point about the ubiquitousness of photography since it was invented and how it’s changed how we think about the world. We now live in a sea of images in addition to the reality we see around us and it’s opened up the world to us in a way that would be impossible without it. We know what our grandparents looked like when they were young, what people look like we’ve never met and what countries look like we’ve never been to all because of photography. She absolutely deepened my love for photography. It’s magic we have in our hands.
She is a fine example of the over intellectualism of photography. To quote Waker Evans - "Whether he (or she) is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts."
You covered a lot very succinctly. 'On Photography' did bring the medium into wider consideration among what might now be called high-brow 'influencers' while being extraordinarily weak and full of self-aggrandising word-noise. Lisette Model summed it up very well, "This woman, she knows everything but understands nothing."
Thank you for this thought-provoking video which has just popped up in my feed. I am an architect, writer and occasional painter and a voracious consumer of the visual arts. Photography has always presented fundamental problems in my understanding of it. I have written about its misuse in architecture and that perceived misuse has possibly conditioned how I have viewed photography generally. Sontag's book clearly explained to me my difficulties in appreciating photography in the way that I appreciate the other visual arts Despite your measured critique of Sontag I still incline to her view. There is much more that can be said in this context, as you yourself noted. Again, my thanks.
@@PhotoConversations I'm guessing a resistance to intellectualism. You certainly suggest a mild anti-intellectual stance in the video. Sontag has every right to speak from a position of authority gleaned from experience and from the hours she devoted to reading, discussing and learning. We can challenge her conclusions, as you have done. However 'tone' falls into the highly subjective category of 'taste'; not an argument I'd advance myself. Your video prompted me to get her down from the bookshelf again.
I think that was a very fair brief summary. I've only read 'On Photography', so I've only got a postage stamp of understanding of her as an author and as a person. I did however re-read sections of it a couple of times because she was pretty good at separating my emotional response from my intellectual one. I've taken to checking when any book was first published before I start reading it, and try to filter what's written through a considered socio-historical context (jeez, that sounds like Sontag talking). It was written 50 years ago with a definite '70's zeitgeist. The world has moved on since then ... in some ways. It was certainly one of the most annoying books I've ever read. I agreed with so much of what she said but also knowing that I would not have got along with her. She certainly came across as being an opinionated intellectual pain in the backside, who was criticising intellectual artistry in photography as being a rehearsed viewpoint; untrue, dishonest and two dimensional in meaning. Alas, she's was probably right, there's way too much BS in photography as a media and as an art. I'll think about that the next time I'm trying to compose a shot and whether it has any 'truth' in it or am I just using compositional mechanisms on the 'Seven Professional Tricks that Improve your Photography' level of UA-cam video's.
It's worth reading from the start and without breaking it up. There is no other book as wide-ranging in its scope. In that way the many, many insights have some sort of context.
It is a pity that there hasn't been more in-depth writing on photography. Robert Adams has a deep understanding about photography and has no personal agenda...unlike SS. Her book did motivate me to start considering what my intent for taking pictures is.
Ad hominem attack. Not engaging with any of the substance of Sontag's work, and not providing any evidence for the accusations intended to discredit her work. Sontag didn't "latch onto photography". She spent a lot of time writing a couple of books about photography with far more thought and analysis (and influence) than the average self-promoting UA-camr/influencer - regardless of whether or not you agree with her arguments. And having already written on art, interpretation, aesthetics, criticism, ethics, film, and literature.
Nothing matches her book as an account of the impact of photography on society since its discovery in the middle of the 19th C. Whatever you think of her insights her book has simply not been surpassed. What a dumb response.
“Susan Sontag’s On Photography offers insightful commentary often overlooked by many modern photographers. As someone eager to deepen my understanding of the medium, her book challenged my views and left me feeling more enriched. I now find myself more at ease when I practice ‘the language of seeing’ with my heart. While Sontag’s intellectual power is undeniable, as with love, simply talking about something doesn’t mean you truly feel it. Thank you, Graeme, for sharing your thoughts on Sontag’s intellectual exploration of photography 🙏🏻.”
A fascinating and absorbing critique. I read Sontag on various issues 20 years ago alongside a research project and you remind me I should read On photography again with that 20 years'experience added
Recently I used the opportunity of a whole day's travel to listen to the whole book on Audible (and check in on Kindle). I'd recommend it. I read it years ago with attention and great admiration. The book stands up. I thought her insights on every page needed thinking about.
Thank you for a thoughtful and informative overview of her book. I think it suffers from the problem that it is very easy to be critical but far harder to be constructive and her undoubted intelligence magnified that issue, giving some of her criticisms a false legitimacy. I believe photography covers the whole spectrum from banal to high art
While I didn't agree with all of her writings, she DID make me think on the photograph at least,. She also had some sort of philosophy on photography which I believe is missing from the current photography landscape.
@@PhotoConversations I might suggest Roland Barthes "Camera Lucida" which is a profound and poetic work about the phenomology of photography. Not new, but a kind of standard work, next to Sontags "on phototography", over here in Europe.
I have just waded through Sontag's book and it was hard to stop myself hurling it out the window. A lot of words but little clear, unbiased thinking. Furthermore, painting has had a rich and colourful history of manipulating truth that, until fairly recently, wasn't quite so easy for photography.
“Love/hate” hardly captures the relationship of a wordsmith and a serious intellectual - one of the 20thC’s most serious - to something as ubiquitous as photography. Indeed the way photographic imagery has come to permeate EVERY aspect of modern life is her subject in these 4 essays. Much of the best - and most ambitious - writing has been written by non-photographers: Benjamin, (drawing on conversations with Brecht), Berger, Barthes, Geoff Dyer. She used the term ‘moralists’ but here let’s be candid: it’s a tradition, a thread, within cultural Marxism. And all the better for it. No book has surpassed it in describing the impact of photography on society. Few books have the range and insight into the diverse photographers that have really mattered. And every page contains insights still worth discussion. Still the most indispensable book on the subject. I would love to see suggestions of books that do as much or more. A book too rich to be successfully summarised. I don’t think you were successful.
@@low3242 I interpreted @photosadhu's comment as a sarcastic suggestion that Susan's writing encourages people to produce useless thoughts, which is dangerous because they could share them.
Good commentary: thank you. I found the book is uneven but sometimes really insightful. The essay "Against Interpretation" is fantastic! I am wondering if the photos starting around the 7 minute mark are yours, Graeme? Really like the one of the guy with the red glove and the ultra phallic night stick at his crotch.
Hi I agree definitely insightful. Yes they are...that was a very strange day/night in which the white far-right battled it out against white police officers. It isn't discussed much because it doesn't fit the narrative, but it was one of the significant moments that led to the end of apartheid.
It would be impossible to go into depth about Sontag's book in the course of one of your videos, but I think you did a good job of introducing some of the concepts she covers. It is written brilliantly and like any great criticism, whether you agree or disagree is not the point. She brings up arguments worth thinking about.
Photographs like art is all about perspective. Some photographs which are beautiful and technically perfect or near perfect are not seen as great images as much as those which lack clarity or even focus. Art is the same way.
I think the success of this video Graeme can be measured by the contrasting comments made about Susan Sontag and your "personal" commentary....................as someone who has not read Sontag I consider this a video that will push people like myself to do at least some investigation..............so, a success 👍
Yes, but was Sontag's 1977 book aware of digital photography -- of cameras that shoot video, stills and something in between? "On Photography" is a study of "film" as actual film -- and not so much as digitized light and shadow. Perhaps this is a better title? "Recalling Photography" ... ?
Another great video and a fair assessment of Sontag. Perhaps we need people like her to question our practice and its ethics. I'm a great admirer of Dianne Arbus and after reading Sontag I feel guilty about my pleasure and interest and wish I didn't
It's not uncommon to have conflicted responses to art. Perceiving both positive and negative elements in art and artists is unavoidable at times, and can prove instructive in the discussion of both.
Yes, photography doesn't tell a story, but it can illustrate a story. The story itself requires words. Without words the viewer may or may not make up a story from what they observe in the image. And each concocted story can be vastly different depending on what the viewer brings to the photograph. Enjoyed the video.
I also question Mrs. Sontag's critical position. As I only wish to share this comment with you and not put my arguments in the hands of haters, I will limit myself to expressing only my disagreement with the aforementioned intellectual. If I find the appropriate means, I will express the foundations of my arguments in more detail. Thank you for your valuable videos to which I have subscribed because I consider them essential for me.
@@emendoz1 Or a little "surreal"...? Leafed through the book again and found this word rather often. The good thing about my (German) edition: at the end we find a long section with quotes by photographers. 15 lines by HCB easily outweigh Sontag's philosophical blabla.
The irony is that Sontag was "projecting" her own insecurities about her own writing. She fails to understand that "Reality" is merely an objective conclusion based upon subjective observation. About Sontag - those who can, do; those who cannot, teach; those can do neither are critics.
In fairness to Sontag as a creative agent, she was herself a filmmaker, having been a longtime film lover. Her erstwhile equivocations on photography have some irony given that film is a species of photography.
Just curious, are you implying that feminism is morally corrupt, or that Sontag was a feminist who also happened to be morally corrupt? (For myself, from what I know of her, I don't regard Sontag as having been corrupt, but rather as self-absorbed and even selfish at times.)
@@gobgobcachoo And the video here makes clear that her opinions on photography evolved over time. She was certainly an avid film lover (film being a species of photography), and was herself a filmmaker.
Thanks for the video and the effort you put into making it. Some Intellectuals really love the sound of their own voices and while her book might have been read a few million times and entertained a percentage of her readers, the photographers work she discounted and dismissed count for far more than her opinion and their images will have been looked at millions of times and will continue to be regarded as important while her book gradually becomes less relevant. I wonder if her marriage to Lebovitz, a great photographer in her own right, helped remove some of her snobbery and disdain for photography? She chose to be photographed rather than painted or drawn throughout her life it would seem and she seemed very happy to pose to achieve an “arty” image. She let Lebovitz photograph her as she was ill and dying but l can’t find any painting of her, a medium she apparently thought more relevant and truthful than photography. I’ll bet the general public would far rather look at the photographs in Life Magazine, Picture Post, National Geographic and any modern magazine featuring quality photography than wade through the pages of her book. Opinions are like noses, someone said, everybody has one but sometimes they’re just not very interesting to anyone else.
Not a good video, Graeme. It isn't appropriate to squash such wide-ranging and challenging analysis into glib characterisations and summaries many of which are wide-of-the-mark. Whatever one's response to the challenge of this book, it is worth noting that it was written as a series of essays - that structure is preserved in the chapts of the book - and yet nothing as been written since with anything like its scope and ambition. I have recently re-read it and I found very few of her insights that don't hold up or at least warrant serious reflection. And she was particularly insightful about Arbus. Arbus has her defenders but the accuracy of Sontag's characterisation is hard to deny. You make it seem as if she was dismissive of Sander. Not so. But she brings out an overlooked angle on his strange archive. A book as serious and influential as On Photography deserves better than a video which will inevitably end up glib, superficial. You did your best but this is not the treatment that that book deserves.
I bought the book when it first came out and have read it a few times over the decades but always with the same reaction - as you and others here have outlined. This book was (methinks understandably) pushed by the posh newspapers in London at the time and certainly furthered her career, as part of that feminist wave when women were far behind in western society (now of course it’s been utterly reversed)! I see it as a philosophy of literally / art criticism in which she chose photography as being relatively untouched compared to, say, fine art. Unfortunately particularly the second half is badly thought out so it was a wasted opportunity. I suspect that the book would have sunk without trace had Sontag not been part of that feminist wave. There is perhaps still not enough serious literature about the philosophy of criticism (using the material of photography), compared to say, literature or ecology but those books do exist and some of them are excellent (but I’m not sure that I’d count the postmodernists in).
Some degree of objectification is unavoidable in human sexual relations. It's possible to objectify someone and still recognize and honor their humanity.
I hated that crap intelecctual drivel! I've never figgered why Annie was with her! My understanding Susan Sontag regarded photography in a negative way. No PUN intended. Pen was a master photographer, she looking for recognition. A waste,
HOW CAN SHE MAKE SUCH LIMITED BIAS VIEWS ON A PHOTOGRAPH1 SHE IS INTELLECTUALIZING ON ONLY A SELECT PHOTOGRAPHERS . SHE IS MISSING THE OVERALL FACTS THAT PHOTOGRAPHY IS A DOCUMENTATION OF THE REALITIES THAT EXSIST.
That's the point Susan Sontag insists on: photography is NOT the documentation of 'reality". It's an interpretation of reality through the eyes and the brain of the photographer. And the camera changes the picture, that has the photographer in his mind, by its technical limitations. By the way: what is 'reality'?
@@superdoc-uv7lf Yes , but this isn’t the reality for the majority of images in the world! Remember that the photograph was the only true representation of what existed in nature ! This is the original power of the amazing medium. Painters were influenced by the medium to become challenged by the photo. This is why I am not impressed or accepting her manifestations on the medium. Such a feminine elite position on her part . She has the freedom to promote herself as a known writer. Big deal - make your $$$ and sell your books which is your motivation. You are a critic for fame.and fortune.
@superdoc-uv7lf reality is what is real. Intellectuals lopsidedly value each other for what is in their heads and what comes out of their mouths and pens. Being a career intellectual nessecitates that you start churning out nonsense because most people are not very intelligent. They are not interested in truth. They are interested in being titilated and catered to.
![John Berger ve Susan Sontag, "How to Tell a Story" (Voices, 1983), 3. Bölüm [Çeviri: Özge Çelik]](/img/n.gif)
What I learned from Sontag that has always stuck with me is her point about the ubiquitousness of photography since it was invented and how it’s changed how we think about the world. We now live in a sea of images in addition to the reality we see around us and it’s opened up the world to us in a way that would be impossible without it. We know what our grandparents looked like when they were young, what people look like we’ve never met and what countries look like we’ve never been to all because of photography. She absolutely deepened my love for photography. It’s magic we have in our hands.
Almost any discussion on photography can lead one to think more deeply, so I too am glad that she wrote it.
She is a fine example of the over intellectualism of photography. To quote Waker Evans - "Whether he (or she) is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts."
Walker knew.
@@wildmano1965 Quite. Excuse the typo btw.
You covered a lot very succinctly. 'On Photography' did bring the medium into wider consideration among what might now be called high-brow 'influencers' while being extraordinarily weak and full of self-aggrandising word-noise. Lisette Model summed it up very well, "This woman, she knows everything but understands nothing."
... Too succinctly
Nice quote Peter
Thank you for this thought-provoking video which has just popped up in my feed. I am an architect, writer and occasional painter and a voracious consumer of the visual arts. Photography has always presented fundamental problems in my understanding of it. I have written about its misuse in architecture and that perceived misuse has possibly conditioned how I have viewed photography generally. Sontag's book clearly explained to me my difficulties in appreciating photography in the way that I appreciate the other visual arts Despite your measured critique of Sontag I still incline to her view. There is much more that can be said in this context, as you yourself noted. Again, my thanks.
Hi Roger Some of here points were really insightful - I mostly found her tone a bit superior.
@@PhotoConversations I'm guessing a resistance to intellectualism. You certainly suggest a mild anti-intellectual stance in the video. Sontag has every right to speak from a position of authority gleaned from experience and from the hours she devoted to reading, discussing and learning. We can challenge her conclusions, as you have done. However 'tone' falls into the highly subjective category of 'taste'; not an argument I'd advance myself. Your video prompted me to get her down from the bookshelf again.
I still like Saul Leiter’s quote, “I don’t have a philosophy, I have a camera.”
Funny!
Quite.
I think that was a very fair brief summary. I've only read 'On Photography', so I've only got a postage stamp of understanding of her as an author and as a person. I did however re-read sections of it a couple of times because she was pretty good at separating my emotional response from my intellectual one.
I've taken to checking when any book was first published before I start reading it, and try to filter what's written through a considered socio-historical context (jeez, that sounds like Sontag talking). It was written 50 years ago with a definite '70's zeitgeist. The world has moved on since then ... in some ways.
It was certainly one of the most annoying books I've ever read. I agreed with so much of what she said but also knowing that I would not have got along with her. She certainly came across as being an opinionated intellectual pain in the backside, who was criticising intellectual artistry in photography as being a rehearsed viewpoint; untrue, dishonest and two dimensional in meaning. Alas, she's was probably right, there's way too much BS in photography as a media and as an art. I'll think about that the next time I'm trying to compose a shot and whether it has any 'truth' in it or am I just using compositional mechanisms on the 'Seven Professional Tricks that Improve your Photography' level of UA-cam video's.
It's worth reading from the start and without breaking it up. There is no other book as wide-ranging in its scope. In that way the many, many insights have some sort of context.
@@jessiespencer696 I did read it from start to finish, I just re-read some sections as I wanted to be sure I understood her point.
It is a pity that there hasn't been more in-depth writing on photography. Robert Adams has a deep understanding about photography and has no personal agenda...unlike SS. Her book did motivate me to start considering what my intent for taking pictures is.
Sontag latched onto photography to promote one thing. Herself.
Ad hominem attack. Not engaging with any of the substance of Sontag's work, and not providing any evidence for the accusations intended to discredit her work. Sontag didn't "latch onto photography". She spent a lot of time writing a couple of books about photography with far more thought and analysis (and influence) than the average self-promoting UA-camr/influencer - regardless of whether or not you agree with her arguments. And having already written on art, interpretation, aesthetics, criticism, ethics, film, and literature.
Nothing matches her book as an account of the impact of photography on society since its discovery in the middle of the 19th C. Whatever you think of her insights her book has simply not been surpassed.
What a dumb response.
@@stuartj.wright1579 , indeed. All her non-fiction writing is insightful and worth reading. Her novels a little less so.
Exactly, she used photography to promote herself. “Look at me.”
@@jeffrey3498Have you even read the book? Idiotic comment
“Susan Sontag’s On Photography offers insightful commentary often overlooked by many modern photographers. As someone eager to deepen my understanding of the medium, her book challenged my views and left me feeling more enriched. I now find myself more at ease when I practice ‘the language of seeing’ with my heart. While Sontag’s intellectual power is undeniable, as with love, simply talking about something doesn’t mean you truly feel it.
Thank you, Graeme, for sharing your thoughts on Sontag’s intellectual exploration of photography 🙏🏻.”
Thanks Stan I hope that you are doing well.
@@PhotoConversations Thanks Graeme, I’m doing well and back to the states, after 4 months in Europe. Ill see you soon📸⏳
A fascinating and absorbing critique. I read Sontag on various issues 20 years ago alongside a research project and you remind me I should read On photography again with that 20 years'experience added
Recently I used the opportunity of a whole day's travel to listen to the whole book on Audible (and check in on Kindle). I'd recommend it. I read it years ago with attention and great admiration. The book stands up. I thought her insights on every page needed thinking about.
Thank you for a thoughtful and informative overview of her book. I think it suffers from the problem that it is very easy to be critical but far harder to be constructive and her undoubted intelligence magnified that issue, giving some of her criticisms a false legitimacy.
I believe photography covers the whole spectrum from banal to high art
Hi Chris For me it is her 'intellectually superior' stance that puts me off.
It’s great how you put her work into perspective and criticise some of her views and still respect her.
Not everyone agrees with your assessment...but thanks for the thumbs up.
While I didn't agree with all of her writings, she DID make me think on the photograph at least,. She also had some sort of philosophy on photography which I believe is missing from the current photography landscape.
Hi Yes, a few more deep thinkers on the subject would be welcome.
@@PhotoConversations I might suggest Roland Barthes "Camera Lucida" which is a profound and poetic work about the phenomology of photography. Not new, but a kind of standard work, next to Sontags "on phototography", over here in Europe.
I have just waded through Sontag's book and it was hard to stop myself hurling it out the window. A lot of words but little clear, unbiased thinking. Furthermore, painting has had a rich and colourful history of manipulating truth that, until fairly recently, wasn't quite so easy for photography.
Hi Tim I remember 'wading' sometimes myself.
“Love/hate” hardly captures the relationship of a wordsmith and a serious intellectual - one of the 20thC’s most serious - to something as ubiquitous as photography. Indeed the way photographic imagery has come to permeate EVERY aspect of modern life is her subject in these 4 essays.
Much of the best - and most ambitious - writing has been written by non-photographers: Benjamin, (drawing on conversations with Brecht), Berger, Barthes, Geoff Dyer. She used the term ‘moralists’ but here let’s be candid: it’s a tradition, a thread, within cultural Marxism. And all the better for it.
No book has surpassed it in describing the impact of photography on society. Few books have the range and insight into the diverse photographers that have really mattered. And every page contains insights still worth discussion. Still the most indispensable book on the subject. I would love to see suggestions of books that do as much or more.
A book too rich to be successfully summarised. I don’t think you were successful.
Hi Lloyd As they say...you can't please everyone all of the time. Go well.
Her writing has the dangerous effect of making creative people "Think".
Are you implying that millions of photographers are empty headed who never thought before messiah Sontag arrived at the scene? Lol.
@@low3242 I interpreted @photosadhu's comment as a sarcastic suggestion that Susan's writing encourages people to produce useless thoughts, which is dangerous because they could share them.
Good commentary: thank you. I found the book is uneven but sometimes really insightful. The essay "Against Interpretation" is fantastic!
I am wondering if the photos starting around the 7 minute mark are yours, Graeme? Really like the one of the guy with the red glove and the ultra phallic night stick at his crotch.
Hi I agree definitely insightful. Yes they are...that was a very strange day/night in which the white far-right battled it out against white police officers. It isn't discussed much because it doesn't fit the narrative, but it was one of the significant moments that led to the end of apartheid.
It would be impossible to go into depth about Sontag's book in the course of one of your videos, but I think you did a good job of introducing some of the concepts she covers. It is written brilliantly and like any great criticism, whether you agree or disagree is not the point. She brings up arguments worth thinking about.
Yup, that sounds about right.
Photographs like art is all about perspective. Some photographs which are beautiful and technically perfect or near perfect are not seen as great images as much as those which lack clarity or even focus. Art is the same way.
Interesting commentary. Well done.
I think the success of this video Graeme can be measured by the contrasting comments made about Susan Sontag and your "personal" commentary....................as someone who has not read Sontag I consider this a video that will push people like myself to do at least some investigation..............so, a success 👍
Yes, the comments are about 5 to 1 (positive to negative), but I obviously stepped on a few sacred beliefs.
As always a very interesting and well made video. Thanks!
Many thanks
Yes, but was Sontag's 1977 book aware of digital photography -- of cameras that shoot video, stills and something in between?
"On Photography" is a study of "film" as actual film -- and not so much as digitized light and shadow.
Perhaps this is a better title? "Recalling Photography" ... ?
Yes maybe.
The medium is the massage. And she ny intellectualisms massages well. Always pointy head fun! Hug a pontificator today!
Another great video and a fair assessment of Sontag. Perhaps we need people like her to question our practice and its ethics. I'm a great admirer of Dianne Arbus and after reading Sontag I feel guilty about my pleasure and interest and wish I didn't
and Diane Arbus!
Hi Paul More often than not, guilt is the weapon used by moralists to bludgeon those that don't conform.
It's not uncommon to have conflicted responses to art. Perceiving both positive and negative elements in art and artists is unavoidable at times, and can prove instructive in the discussion of both.
Yes, photography doesn't tell a story, but it can illustrate a story. The story itself requires words. Without words the viewer may or may not make up a story from what they observe in the image. And each concocted story can be vastly different depending on what the viewer brings to the photograph.
Enjoyed the video.
Thanks Roger
I also question Mrs. Sontag's critical position. As I only wish to share this comment with you and not put my arguments in the hands of haters, I will limit myself to expressing only my disagreement with the aforementioned intellectual. If I find the appropriate means, I will express the foundations of my arguments in more detail. Thank you for your valuable videos to which I have subscribed because I consider them essential for me.
Much appreciated. Don't worry about the haters...all they can do is call you names...like school kids in the playground.
Perhaps... there should be only DRAWINGS of Mrs Sontag - instead of so many ... photographs? Just thinking...
Perhaps the drawings of Sontag should be out of focus and not very clear. Just thinking…
@@emendoz1 Or a little "surreal"...? Leafed through the book again and found this word rather often. The good thing about my (German) edition: at the end we find a long section with quotes by photographers. 15 lines by HCB easily outweigh Sontag's philosophical blabla.
If you're frustrated by sontag's words you are addicted to instagram
The irony is that Sontag was "projecting" her own insecurities about her own writing. She fails to understand that "Reality" is merely an objective conclusion based upon subjective observation. About Sontag - those who can, do; those who cannot, teach; those can do neither are critics.
Yes, I think she revealed a lot about herself.
In fairness to Sontag as a creative agent, she was herself a filmmaker, having been a longtime film lover. Her erstwhile equivocations on photography have some irony given that film is a species of photography.
Excellent 💎🌟
Thank you for this video. I have the book on photography but I still trying to read it. She was morally corrupt feminist
Hi Thomas You may be kicking the hornets nest.
Just curious, are you implying that feminism is morally corrupt, or that Sontag was a feminist who also happened to be morally corrupt? (For myself, from what I know of her, I don't regard Sontag as having been corrupt, but rather as self-absorbed and even selfish at times.)
a good listen !
As a photographer I can't stand the woman, actually I don't think she knew much at all.
Ha-Ha No need to hold back on how you really feel! Cheers Graeme
She was married to Anna lebowitz. She might know a few things about photography
@@gobgobcachoo And the video here makes clear that her opinions on photography evolved over time. She was certainly an avid film lover (film being a species of photography), and was herself a filmmaker.
Thanks for the video and the effort you put into making it. Some Intellectuals really love the sound of their own voices and while her book might have been read a few million times and entertained a percentage of her readers, the photographers work she discounted and dismissed count for far more than her opinion and their images will have been looked at millions of times and will continue to be regarded as important while her book gradually becomes less relevant. I wonder if her marriage to Lebovitz, a great photographer in her own right, helped remove some of her snobbery and disdain for photography? She chose to be photographed rather than painted or drawn throughout her life it would seem and she seemed very happy to pose to achieve an “arty” image. She let Lebovitz photograph her as she was ill and dying but l can’t find any painting of her, a medium she apparently thought more relevant and truthful than photography.
I’ll bet the general public would far rather look at the photographs in Life Magazine, Picture Post, National Geographic and any modern magazine featuring quality photography than wade through the pages of her book. Opinions are like noses, someone said, everybody has one but sometimes they’re just not very interesting to anyone else.
Yes, those photographs of her dying were quite bizarre, given some of her thoughts about photography.
Not a good video, Graeme. It isn't appropriate to squash such wide-ranging and challenging analysis into glib characterisations and summaries many of which are wide-of-the-mark.
Whatever one's response to the challenge of this book, it is worth noting that it was written as a series of essays - that structure is preserved in the chapts of the book - and yet nothing as been written since with anything like its scope and ambition. I have recently re-read it and I found very few of her insights that don't hold up or at least warrant serious reflection.
And she was particularly insightful about Arbus. Arbus has her defenders but the accuracy of Sontag's characterisation is hard to deny. You make it seem as if she was dismissive of Sander. Not so. But she brings out an overlooked angle on his strange archive.
A book as serious and influential as On Photography deserves better than a video which will inevitably end up glib, superficial. You did your best but this is not the treatment that that book deserves.
👏👏👏
Thanks
first wave feminist micro focus.
I bought the book when it first came out and have read it a few times over the decades but always with the same reaction - as you and others here have outlined.
This book was (methinks understandably) pushed by the posh newspapers in London at the time and certainly furthered her career, as part of that feminist wave when women were far behind in western society (now of course it’s been utterly reversed)!
I see it as a philosophy of literally / art criticism in which she chose photography as being relatively untouched compared to, say, fine art. Unfortunately particularly the second half is badly thought out so it was a wasted opportunity. I suspect that the book would have sunk without trace had Sontag not been part of that feminist wave.
There is perhaps still not enough serious literature about the philosophy of criticism (using the material of photography), compared to say, literature or ecology but those books do exist and some of them are excellent (but I’m not sure that I’d count the postmodernists in).
Don't mention the Post...word.! You're right, there is a need for some in depth photographic criticism.
Sontag has next to nothing to say about landscape photography, or about, say, Ansel Adams, as best I can tell.
As long as we glamorise and objectify anyone of anything we are in the wrong : be it photography, porn, God , Sontag or Art.
Some degree of objectification is unavoidable in human sexual relations. It's possible to objectify someone and still recognize and honor their humanity.
I hated that crap intelecctual drivel! I've never figgered why Annie was with her! My understanding Susan Sontag regarded photography in a negative way. No PUN intended. Pen was a master photographer, she looking for recognition. A waste,
HOW CAN SHE MAKE SUCH LIMITED BIAS VIEWS ON A PHOTOGRAPH1 SHE IS INTELLECTUALIZING ON ONLY A SELECT PHOTOGRAPHERS . SHE IS MISSING THE OVERALL FACTS THAT PHOTOGRAPHY IS A DOCUMENTATION OF THE REALITIES THAT EXSIST.
That's the point Susan Sontag insists on: photography is NOT the documentation of 'reality". It's an interpretation of reality through the eyes and the brain of the photographer. And the camera changes the picture, that has the photographer in his mind, by its technical limitations. By the way: what is 'reality'?
@@superdoc-uv7lf Yes , but this isn’t the reality for the majority of images in the world! Remember that the photograph was the only true representation of what existed in nature ! This is the original power of the amazing medium. Painters were influenced by the medium to become challenged by the photo. This is why I am not impressed or accepting her manifestations on the medium. Such a feminine elite position on her part . She has the freedom to promote herself as a known writer. Big deal - make your $$$ and sell your books which is your motivation. You are a critic for fame.and fortune.
@superdoc-uv7lf reality is what is real. Intellectuals lopsidedly value each other for what is in their heads and what comes out of their mouths and pens. Being a career intellectual nessecitates that you start churning out nonsense because most people are not very intelligent. They are not interested in truth. They are interested in being titilated and catered to.