On Photography

This was terribly interesting, but I think you needed to know a little more than Sontag explained to understand where she is coming from in all this. The important thing to remember is that Plato want...

I found this book utterly maddening. I'm giving it four stars not for the content itself, but for the quality of thinking I did while reading. I'm rather surprised not to have found any comments in ot...

Written in cool and caustic prose, On Photography consists of seven meditations on the medium's ethics, social uses, and history. Sontag drops epigram after epigram, aphorism after aphorism, in these ...

In Plato’s Cave - 5/5America, Seen ThroughPhotographs, Darkly - 4/5Melancholy Objects - 5/5The Heroism of Vision - 4/5Photographic Evangels - 5/5The Image-World - 5/5The above six essays simply make...

I've never read anything by Susan Sontag, but encountered mentions of her book On Photography numerous times in various contexts. It's hailed as "one of the most highly regarded books of its kind". I ...

It’s like there are questions and shadows in the periphery of my vision, and Susan Sontag puts both hands on my shoulders and turns me to face them head on....

Step one: buy this book. Step two: find a writing utensil Step three: go on the subway/metro/pvta and go!you will want to underline just about every sentence because it is life changing. You will want...

I was fond of photography (no disappearance on that side!) It was the first book dealing with photography, which is not technical, that I read. I remember something deep, complex, which helped me to p...

I approached On Photography expecting a sense of warmth and intellect that Maria Popova paints Susan Sontag with. One essay in, I was slightly disappointed to feel no warmth. So, I read an interview o...

Susan Sontag starts her book on photography with a reference to Plato's cave, a dark prison only a few escape. This is not accidental. It defines and presages the thinking that underlies the whole boo...