Sontag explains photography to be "an ethics of seeing." She says that photographs give us a sense that we can hold the whole world. They are light, cheap, easily made concrete objects that we can carry around with us and hold. I was really interested on how she mentions that photography is power. It is the ability to "put oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge."
Books have been the most commonly used method of arranging photographs. I never really considered this before. There are several different uses and things you can do with a photo, however, placing them in books is most popular. The problem with this, however, is it takes away the essential quality when it becomes mass produced.
Photographs capture what lays before the photographer's eyes and photography is therefore, a way of seeing. If seeing is believing, then original photography, without any manipulation, is evidence. I like this idea because I have always used photography as evidence but I have never "called" it evidence.
Another thing I found to be interesting was that photography was not always considered an art; not until it's industrialization. The camera was used by professionals and by others in a casual manner and it had no clear social use. I understand why people would have trouble calling it art, however, some photographs taken deserve the artistic title.
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