RR4 Susan Sontag

According to Susan Sontag’s , photographs and the images in Plato’s cave are “Mere images of the truth”. I think that for Sontag, truth or reality stand for only “what we can see”. There is a difference between what we can see with our own eyes (reality) and what we see with a camera.Sontag relates this to Plato’s allegory in which prisoner’s in a cave see shadows of objects cast on the wall due to a fire, in effect, seeing false images of reality. To her, photos are the same; false images of reality that one cannot absolutely deduce anything from.

I think the key point in Susan Sontag’s “In Plato’s Cave” is that we rely too much on photography to give meaning to our experiences. Over the years, Photography has given us the opportunity to turn our experiences and moments in life into infinite objects that last for as long as we want. She reveals her  views on how photography has affected society foreshadowing the consequences of such desperate reliance on photos.

However, in my opinion, this reliance on photos has useful purpose in some cases. It is without doubt that photos cannot be trusted entirely, but this is dependent on the viewer’s judgment and supporting information.

 

 

One thought on “RR4 Susan Sontag

  1. rmichals

    While Sontag urges us not to trust the false images presented by photography, she is not entirely negative about it either. She states, “photographers alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at …” I think the word enlarge indicates a positive take on what photography offers us.

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