On Photography: the camera and the world
A reading of photography as a way of collecting, interpreting, and exercising power over what we see.
In On Photography, Susan Sontag treats the camera as more than a recording instrument. A photograph selects, frames, and gives permanence to one fraction of the world, turning experience into an object that can be kept, circulated, and interpreted.
Every frame preserves a view while leaving another view outside it.
The book remains useful because it asks what repeated exposure to images does to memory and judgement. Its questions now extend naturally to feeds, archives, screenshots, and the constant production of personal images.
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A reconsideration of war photography, spectatorship, sympathy, and the limits of visual evidence.
Why explanation can become a screen between an artwork and the experience it offers.
