On Photography

The article by Susan Sontag covers a large variety of topics, from the point of photography to the evolution of photos. She starts by explaining the importance of images in general, and how anything can be an image. She also talks about the difference between photos as compares to paintings and videos. Sontag explains that photos are one of the best ways to give proof to an event. Saying that sometimes we do not really believe something, but than someone gives a photo of it and we start to believe whatever it was that we did not believe at first. Books have been shown as the most used way to show photos, but Sontag believes that having a photo fitted and copied to fit the mass production of books hurts the image more than it helps it. At the end of the article she shows how far photography has come. How it started out as a hobby for rich man that can afford all of the equipment. In todays world with camera phones, anyone can take a picture as any moment, and upload it to the internet so everyone can see it, making photography a much different part of society than it started out as. I thought this was a good article. Sontag is good about getting her point across without using too many words. Also, she made a convincing argument for why photography is a good medium, and how it is helpful to the world. I thought the way she compared it to film and paintings was interesting, because I never would have thought about comparing them even with all of their similarities. Even when she compared them, she was able to show how they were different without getting off subject by talking too much about paintings and film. Overall it was an interesting article.