On Photography by Susan Sontag

Summary: Sontag talks about photography, its development into the ubiquitous technology it is today. The mentality of the photographer and the photographed, the art and skill of photography documents and expands reality and our sense of what is worth looking at.

Review: This book is beautiful. The prose hits hard and true on an elusive subject. She compares styles and intents of photographers worth knowing. She expanded my vocabulary of who is important to know in photography. Each sentence is pregnant with evidence strengthening her arguments about photography, what makes it a special way to collect the world.

Rating: 9 camera obscuras

Favorite part: “…the camera cannot help but reveal faces as social masks. Each person photographed was a sign of a certain trade, class, or profession. All his subjects are representative, equally representative, a given social reality–their own.” P.55

Wine-pairing:  Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? .The Net’s Impact on Our Minds and Future. This is a perfect book to splice and insert into On Photography for a post-modern view on the new direction that technology is taking our perception on reality. When I have excellent experiences, I don’t think as often, how can I capture this in a painting, but how can I photograph it to document the occasion and then it has changed to:what should my Facebook status be today?