Susan Sontag, ON PHOTOGRAPHY
To read a photography, we need a philosophy; without one, we are passive consumers of visual data, reflecting little and evaluating only in the most basic terms (the “that’s cool” and “that sucks” school). In this course, we use Susan Sontag’s On Photography, focusing on an excerpt that covers (among many splendid ideas) four key concepts: the grammar of seeing, the ethics of seeing, the role of the photographer, and the inherent didacticism of photography.
After having collaborated in class on an annotation (of sorts) of the excerpt, you are all capable of reading a photograph in a mature, thoughtful way. The list here is a guideline, not a requirement; while you can separate each section, effective analysis will meld them together in the obvious ways.
Reading a Photograph
- The Grammar of Seeing
- The Ethics of Seeing
- The Role of the Photographer
- The Photo’s Message
1. Grammar
Sontag calls this “a new visual code” taught by photographs. It is the study of the physical layout of the photograph, and it can be broken down into the following parts:
- - the layout (what is where)
- - the action (implied and explicit)
- - the artistry (e.g., contrast, color, perspective, selectivity)
- - our (read: the viewer’s) sense of what Sontag describes as ”what is worth looking at”
The last is a simple evaluation: Is this photograph worth looking at in an aesthetic sense?
2. Ethics
Sontag calls this the study of “what we have a right to observe”; she also compares it to the grammar of seeing, pairing the two as “imperatives of taste and conscience.” This second step is about that conscience. We, the viewers and readers of a photograph, must grapple with ideas of intrusiveness, morality, and violence (to name only three of a long list).
To use another framing question: Is the photograph under consideration worth considering in an ethical sense? Note that not all photographs challenge us ethically — at least, not in the same ways.
3. The Photographer
Sontag argues that “aggression [is] implicit in every use of the camera,” painting the photographer as merely attempting to shine light on ”the shady commerce of art and truth.” We must place ourselves in the moment with the photographer, considering the context of that frozen artifact, the photograph itself. Some of our considerations are here:
- - Is the situation dangerous enough to threaten the photographer?
- - Does the situation seem to suggest intervention, even if the photographer did not intervene?
- - Is there a sense of the photographer’s style or personality in the photograph?
- - Or does the photographer manage to be self-effacing, as Sontag calls it?
With these — and with the many other considerations possible — the framing question is this: What is revealed about the moment and the photographer by the evidence and implications of a human agent?
4. The Message
The most complicated aspect of reading a photograph is deciphering and separating the messages in it. We look for context, both historical and contemporary (i.e., in our reading of the image); we look for impact, both historical and contemporary; and we look for didacticism – what the photograph teaches us. Sontag argues that “photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are,” and our attempt is to understand fully that interpretation. Although there are other ways to uncover meaning and insight from a photograph, the aforementioned keys are:
- - historical and contemporary context
- - historical and contemporary impact
- - the instructive power of the photograph (its didacticism)
The framing question here: What does this photograph mean, and what does it do?
