On photogrpahy--a book full of non-sense?? [Archive]

saiseto

05-23-2005, 01:07

Any one here have read the book 'On photography' by Susan Sontag? I have seen in another forum saying this book is only full of 'BULL ****' where Ms. Sontag only expressing some simple concepts with very diffcult words and confusing idea. In fact, the guy in that forum actually used an example of 'mother is a woman' to compare with the ideas and concepts in Ms. Sontag's book.

I personally think Ms. Sontag has provided a very interesting view on how photography has changed and affecting our life in this book. It also rised some questions on how a photgrapher should think and consider about its work. Even some of the points maybe not be completely agreed by everyone, I just can't see why the term 'bull ****' would be appropriate to discribe this book.

So, what do people here think about this book?

RML

05-23-2005, 01:23

ChrisN

05-23-2005, 01:31

Just bought a copy, after reading an article about Sontag and her writing, in Black & White Photography (Issue 44, p30). The article closes with the suggestion that she stepped back from the most provocative arguments of On Photography in her later writing. I have not yet got far into the book, but it is certainly thought-provoking.

Terence T

05-23-2005, 02:01

Have you read the book? I haven't, so I can't make any judgement on it. Maybe you shouldn't either, especially when that judgement is based on the very personal of a single induhvidual. If you can get the book, get it and read it. IMO that's the only useful way of forming your own opinion on a book. :)

From his post, it seems like he did actually read the book and was expressing his disagreement that the book was labelled a lousy read by members of another forum.

saiseto

05-23-2005, 02:14

The BS comment was made in a photographic forum in Hong Kong. However, the forum is written almost completely in chinese and that's why i didn't put up a link here.

Terence T

05-23-2005, 02:29

Here's a pretty controversial review of the book on p.net

On Photography - Review by Philip Greenspun (http://photo.net/photo/dead-trees/on-photography.html)

Sean Reid

05-23-2005, 03:46

RubenBlaedel

05-23-2005, 04:03

The BS comment was made in a photographic forum in Hong Kong. However, the forum is written almost completely in chinese and that's why i didn't put up a link here.

how do you say "bull ****" in chinese

Terence T

05-23-2005, 04:09

how do you say "bull ****" in chinese

I don't recall a term which quite shares the same meaning as "BS" in the chinese language. Perhaps an expression which is oftentimes used to described a ridiculous situation can be used in its place... "fung pee!". The direct traslation is flatulence, somewhat related to "BS" I suppose.

jlw

05-23-2005, 04:36

I read the book when it first came out (back in the late 1970s, I believe.) At that time I was working at a job that required writing occasional art criticism articles, and I thought I had better be up on it because it was getting a lot of attention in those circles.

I thought it was a worthwhile book -- but the thing you've got to remember (and this was discussed heavily in the art-criticism and philosophy press at the time) is that despite its title, it really wasn't, and wasn't intended to be, a "photography book."

Sontag's overall intellectual posture was as a social critic -- specifically, a leftist, feminist social critic -- and the book was more about how photographic representation fit into her overall philosophical view of society. If you've worked your way through any of her other books (at that time her magnum opus was considered to be "Styles of Radical Will") you'll get what I mean.

Having said that, I did find some ideas in the book useful to me as a photographer. In particular, I was struck by her tossed-off remark about photographers "looking at the world as [merely] a collection of potential photographs."

Thinking about that made me decide I didn't want to live my life that way, and caused me to rethink my approach to photography, moving away from the photojournalistic, hit-and-run, search-for-one-iconic image I was involved with then, and toward the more long-term, in-depth observation style I try to practice today. (Incidentally, that switch in approach was also what drew me back to using a rangefinder camera.)

I probably would have been a much more successful photographer if I hadn't made that change, but I don't regret having made it. So in that sense, I'd have to say Sontag's book (or at least that one idea in it) had a big effect on me, and I consider that effect to have been beneficial.

Incidentally, here's another example of one little idea in a book changing my outlook as a photographer: In the foreword to a book of photographs by Elliot Erwitt, there was a profile of the photographer entitled "The Man Who Kept Something for Himself." The title came from an idea Erwitt had mentioned in an interview for the profile: that while you can work as a photographer with the idea of satisfying customers or pleasing other people, it's important to keep something of your photography for yourself, something that doesn't need to satisfy anyone except you.

I would have been a lot more successful if I hadn't tripped over that idea, too, but because of it I've been a lot happier as a photographer...

JOE1951

05-23-2005, 05:08

I'll pretty much second jlw's comments, although the book didn't have the same impact on me as a photographer.

I read the book and enjoyed it and I now like a lot of Sontag's writing.

I've also heard she had later distanced herself from the book, but I haven't heard the reasoning.

You may want to look at "Diana & Nikon" by Janet Malcolm. I don't think Malcolm writes as well as Sontag, but it's along the same lines as "On Photography" as art criticism, but as I recall, with more emphasis on specific photographers and examples of their work to reinforce a concepts she is presenting.

There is also Roland Barthes "Camera Lucida" which I haven't read, so i won't comment on him.

back alley

05-23-2005, 05:11

i dont read but i like to look at the pictures...

joe

tajart

05-23-2005, 05:30

i'm so impressed with the dialogue on this forum. around the time of her death, posters and poseurs on other fourms lambasted her and her work, in such b.s. fashion, that i was left with a high disregard for those individuals, at least on the intellectual level. i've always thought of ms. sontag as a philosopher, and writer, on a wide variety of subjects. i had the opportunity to see and hear her speak on a couple of occasions- she was fantastic. and i have to say, i didn't get or understand everything she spoke about those evenings, but i knew she had a great intellect and mind. tj

nwcanonman

05-23-2005, 05:58

i dont read but i like to look at the pictures...

joe
.............................
Joe,
I've heard they're coming out with a scratch-N-sniff version. :D

back alley

05-23-2005, 06:39

.............................
Joe,
I've heard they're coming out with a scratch-N-sniff version. :D

rotflmao!

that one got me good.
joe

kbg32

05-23-2005, 07:11

Schedule me for my lobotomy then because I think it's one of the worst books on photography ever written. We discussed it on this forum in the midst of another thread but, unfortunately, I can't recall the thread name.

Cheers,

Sean

Your comment Sean made me think about my time in graduate school. For a long time I couldn't stand to read any critical writings on photography. It gave me a headache. One summer between semesters, something changed for me and I began to read as many critical writings on photography as I could get my hands on. I was hungry. Andy Grunberg, Roland Barthes, A.D. Coleman ,Robert Adams, and I began to re-read essays written by Julia Scully in the old Modern Photography magazine of the 70's. They were great and extremely thought provoking, and helped me to understand what I was doing. I guess I was looking for something - an understanding within my own work to express not just in images, but verbally as well. To dismiss Sontag's book "as one of the worst books on photography ever written", is, with all due respect, a bit unfair. I think you should read some of these other books when you have the time and are in the right frame of mind. You might find yourself actually enjoying them and understanding more of photography's importance, on many levels. To understand more of who and what we are, and do, is important.

Cheers.

RML

05-23-2005, 07:22

Kbg32, I think Sean is entitled to his opinion, just like you are yours. We both don't know enough about Sean's reasoning and past experience to know what he founded his opinion on, so we can hardly judge him on that (if we want to do that anyway).

But you're right that (for some at least) it's important to know why we're shooting at all. The same goes for me and I would like to ask you if you could list the authors and the book titles (preferable with ISBN numbers) of the books you were talking about. Critical writing on photography is scarce here in Holland and finding out about (to me) foreign books on this topic is migh impossible, except through the likes of you and other members here on RFF.

FrankS

05-23-2005, 07:39

I tried to read this book and got through 1/2 of it but it just gives me a headeache! I am a visual person and am not so much drawn by words. On top of that, I try to live and photograph intuitively, trying not to let intlellectualizing interfere with the experience. This book of words on photography criticism is everything that I am not. It's not my style nor cup of tea.

kbg32

05-23-2005, 07:43

RML,

Here are a few books with ISBN numbers. There are many other great reads on photography. A. D. Coleman and Andy Grundberg' s writings I strongly recommend as a place to start. Depending on how versed you are in photo history, you may need to research some of the photographers they write about. Grundberg used to be the photography critic for the New York Times, and before that wrote for Modern Photography Magazine in the late 70's early 80's.

Light Readings: A Photography Critic's Writings 1968-1978 by A.D. Coleman ISBN: 0826316670
Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values by Robert Adams ISBN: 0893813680
Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews by Robert Adams ISBN: 0893816035
Crisis of the Real: Writings on Photography Since 1974 (Writers and Artists on Photography) by Andy Grundberg ISBN: 0893818550

Cheers.

kbg32

05-23-2005, 07:55

FrankS,

Beleive me, this is not about intellectualizing. It's about understanding and being informed. We are free to dislike or like as we choose. Free to read or not. I used to be so much against reading this stuff as the next person. Sontag writings certainly may not be the place to start if one wants to read critical essays. There are many great writers and writings out there to be discovered and enjoyed on many levels. Or not.

It never hurts to have knowledge.

Cheers,

Keith

FrankS

05-23-2005, 08:00

"It never hurts to have knowledge."

As a teacher, I could never argue against such a statement, but what we're talking about are critical essays - someone's opinion. There's a difference.

kbg32

05-23-2005, 08:04

"It never hurts to have knowledge."

As a teacher, I could never argue against such a statement, but what we're talking about are critical essays - someone's opinion. There's a difference.

Yes, absolutely. I certainly agree with you. But isn't history for instance, someone's opinion?

These essays are there to make us think. That's all. This is important. One does not live and work in a vacumn, no matter how much one believes they work decisively or intuitively.

:)

Sean Reid

05-23-2005, 08:37

Actually, my comment on Sontag's book comes in the context of having read a fair amount of art criticism over many years including the writers you mention (except Julia Scully). ie: Grunberg writing for the NY Times and elsewhere, Barthes writing for himself (literally), Adams "Beauty in Photography", etc.

The writers on art and photography who most interest me most (off the top of my head), however, have been James Agee, Jack Kerouac, Suzanne Langer, Meyer Schapiro, E.H. Gombrich, Robert Coles and, naturally, Ben Lifson.

So, while you may disagree with my view, know that it's been formed in that context.

Sean

Bertram2

05-23-2005, 09:01

Sontag's overall intellectual posture was as a social critic -- specifically, a leftist, feminist social critic..

Oh oh, for some "heads" of a certain kind of american journaille this comes close to their worst case which is a gay jewish communist !

No wonder that the book provoked some BS comments . But now you made me curious, I'll try to get a translated copy :D

Best,
Bertram

Sean Reid

05-23-2005, 09:25

Much of the writing that's been helpful to me as a photographer hasn't been about photography at all. Frank and I have both stated in another thread (a couple months ago) that we thought "On Photography" was a terrible book.

A couple posts above someone asked for a bibliography of suggested books and that's a great constructive direction for a thread like this to head in so I'll put in my two cents about the writing I do think is good:

The best writing I've ever read on photography is James Agee's introduction to Helen Levitt's "A Way of Seeing". Helen didn't choose him by accident. Also great is Jack Kerouac's introduction to Robert Frank's "The Americans". Once again, that pairing was no accident. Basil Davidson wrote very well for Paul Strand's "Tir A Mhurain" but that writing is more about the subject than about photography. Meyer Schapiro rarely wrote about photographers but his essay in Robert Bergman's "A Kind of Rapture" is worth reading, I think. Otherwise, Meyer Schapiro on anyone is worth reading. E.H. Gombrich's "The Story of Art" is wonderful. Back to Agee, his writing on the same subject as Walker Evans' pictures in "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is beautiful and rings true to me. Walker Evans own writing on his own work is great reading. Ben Lifson (http://www.benlifson.com) is worth reading on anyone, especially on Atget, Kertesz and Winogrand. He's getting even better with age of course and his new book on the history of photgraphy (understood as a visual art) is going to be a fascinating read, based on the drafts I've seen so far. People can read his column for free right now on-line and that writing is, in my mind, truly helpful to serious photographers. All of these people write, first and foremost about "the thing itself" (to borrow and re-apply from Szarkowski): about art, artists and subject. The writing is not a means of advancing an agenda, per se.

In terms of true philosophy with respect to visual art, I don't know of anything better than Suzanne Langer's "Feeling and Form". In my mind, it's everything Sontag's writing isn't. Her writing, sometimes very dense, is truly rigorous and fair and honest. There's no smoke and mirrors such as we sometimes see when an author uses a nominal subject as a "Trojan Horse" for an entirely different kind of agenda. ie: Contrary to Sontag's assertions, the camera is certainly not a phallus, by any stretch of the imagination.

Back to the list of great writing on photography, I'm sure I've overlooked some and will post again if my my memory clears.

Sean

back alley

05-23-2005, 09:56

weston's daybooks are reading that i enjoyed and learned from also, more about life than shooting.

ralph steiner wrote an article for a now long dead mag that hit home. it was a bit about other photographers he had known and more about aging and shooting/darkroom work.

joe

kbg32

05-23-2005, 10:28

Other great non-photo reads are Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece"., followed by Dore Ashton's "A Fable of Modern Art". These should be read together. Ashton's book attempts to trace the origins of modern art in painting, writing, music, and sculpture. Quite thought provoking.

RML

05-23-2005, 10:48

Great, guys! Now I need even more time than my day has hours! :p

I've been wondering about Weston's daybooks. I haven't been able to find a copy I can afford, though.

For a while I've been reading monographs on famous photographers, hoping to find some snippets of information on how they themselves looked at their work and "methods". Needless to say that I've been disappointed quite a bit. :)

I'll try to find at least a few of the books that were (and perhaps will be) mentioned in this thread. At least I'll have a few new books to read before going to sleep. :)

aizan

05-23-2005, 10:58

i can't find the old thread, must have been deleted....

anyhow, i've since finished reading weston's daybooks. i'm kinda POed that he burnt what may have been the most interesting part of his daybooks, from when he wasn't "fully formed", sprung like athena out of zeus's head. once he found his style/voice/groove, the only things he really worries about are money and getting out of commercial work. i want to read about the time he wasn't so sure about what he wanted to do! ugh!

sontag's book is fun. you'll go "yeah, that's it!" on every other page, and "hmm, not so sure" in between.

Jarvis

05-23-2005, 11:22

Altough I enjoy reading practically on any subject and frequently do so (I don't have TV, DVD or Video) I found the book written in a style which is way beyond the Ivory tower, it was more like listening to a conversation between two drunk wanna be's in an overpriced uptown sceny/trendy/arty cafe .. It didn't tell me anything worthwhile, I didn't learn anything from it and I found most statements, well "empty" and obvious ... You will miss nothing by not reading this book (my opinion)

jlw

05-23-2005, 11:47

Contrary to Sontag's assertions, the camera is certainly not a phallus, by any stretch of the imagination.

That notion wasn't original to Sontag, or very isolated. There's a whole subcategory of academic feminist literature dealing with this idea of camera as phallus and photography as "sublimation of the male gaze."

[I'd be inclined to write off the whole corpus as B.S., if it weren't for the fact that a few years ago in Kansas City a female photographer friend and I went to a group showing consisting entirely of photos of nudes, and both of us noticed independently that the female photographers represented were the only ones whose nudes were NOT crap.]

The result of having to wade through all this stuff in my formative art-critic years is that anymore I don't read much of anything written by anyone except Jane Austen and P.G. Wodehouse, both of whom have the advantage of having certifiably nothing to do with photography (except for a very funny short story titled "Romance of a Bulb-Squeezer" written by the latter.) This may make me a somewhat unintelligent photographer -- but to quote P. J. O'Rourke (before I stopped reading him, too) "Sometimes intelligence is useless until you shine the cold, hard light of stupidity on it."

hoot

05-23-2005, 12:05

Well, I read _On Photography_ twice, and have also read its 1997 sequel, _Regarding the Pain of Others_, which concentrates on war photography. I must say these books have some very important ideas in them (see below for examples). The fact that Sontag was not a photographer adds what I think is a very productive critical distance to her analysis of the medium. Of course _On Photography_ is really mainly "on Susan Sontag", and so the title is very misleading if it gives anyone the impression that this book is a good introduction to photography. However, if read simply as a postmodernist philosophical treatise that takes photography as its subject (in the same way that Jacques Derrida's philosophical writings centered around his own circumcision), I find it a very compelling read.

"Memory freeze-frames; its basic unit is the single image. In an era of information overload, the photograph provides a quick way of apprehending something and a compact form for memorizing it. The photograph is like a quotation, or a maxim or proverb. Each of us mentally stocks hundreds of photographs, subject to instant recall." (_Regarding the Pain of Others_, paperback edition, page 22)

"Photography, though not an art form in itself, has the peculiar capacity to turn all its subjects into works of art." (_On Photography_, paperback edition, page 149)

By the way, Sontag's companion of many years was the famous photographer Annie Leibovitz, so I'm guessing she did have ready access to technical and inside information.

Roger Hicks

05-23-2005, 12:07

I'm with Jarvis on this one. The title, I felt, was profoundly misleading. Better titles would have been 'On Susan Sontag's Agenda' and 'On Pseudo-Analysis'. I don't mind 'difficult' books; hell, I'm still trying to read Keynes's General Theory. But it seems to me that hers was an extraordinarily one-dimensional analysis of a very complex subject, written from a position of profound ignorance and bias. It was like reading a commentary on the Kama Sutra by the Pope, or a Chinese history of Tibet.

I have friends who have a higher opinion of it, though even they say that it was at most a long magazine article stretched intolerably to book length. Unfortunately I can't re-read it because I gave my copy away (with alacrity) to someone who said they wanted to read it. That must have been over 20 years ago, and I'm certainly not going to pay good money to read it again.

Note: the above was written at the same time as another post that said the book was really 'On Susan Sontag': I was surprised to see it already in use when I posted my views. Interesting that substantially the same phrase must have been written twice within seconds of one another.

Cheers,

Roger

aizan

05-23-2005, 12:09

"Sometimes intelligence is useless until you shine the cold, hard light of stupidity on it."

omg, that's a great quote. :D

Sean Reid

05-23-2005, 12:45

That notion wasn't original to Sontag, or very isolated. There's a whole subcategory of academic feminist literature dealing with this idea of camera as phallus and photography as "sublimation of the male gaze."

[I'd be inclined to write off the whole corpus as B.S., if it weren't for the fact that a few years ago in Kansas City a female photographer friend and I went to a group showing consisting entirely of photos of nudes, and both of us noticed independently that the female photographers represented were the only ones whose nudes were NOT crap.]

I imagine it wasn't but its widespread use doesn't make it any less ridiculous. It's a theory where the Emperor has no clothes. And that theory is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to Sontag's nonsense. The extent to which the ideas she wrote about were not her own doesn't affect her accountability for using them.

How does the fact that the women in that show made better nudes (if indeed that was the case) have any relationship to this idea of camera as phallus? I don't see the connection you're making.

Cheers,

Sean

FrankS

05-23-2005, 13:24

I am more than willing, anxious in fact, to give away my copy of this book. Anyone want it? Trade you for a roll of B+W film.

Roger Hicks

05-23-2005, 13:30

Outdated film OK?

Cheers,

Roger

FrankS

05-23-2005, 13:32

I was hoping for someone a little closer, Roger. Postage to Europe will be costly.

Roger Hicks

05-23-2005, 13:34

Fair enough!

Cheers,

Roger

hoot

05-23-2005, 13:58

Let's do the time warp again, Roger!

aizan

05-23-2005, 17:27

man, i forgot how great the chapter "photographic evangels" was.

GeneW

05-23-2005, 17:36

Better titles would have been 'On Susan Sontag's Agenda' and 'On Pseudo-Analysis'.
Pseudo-Analysis?? Don't you think that's piling it on a bit?

Gene

Bertram2

05-23-2005, 17:39

: Contrary to Sontag's assertions, the camera is certainly not a phallus, by any stretch of the imagination.
Sean

The camera not. But the lenses maybe. For a certain kind of "photographers" i could imagine this to be the true background. Thinks about some of those at P.net ! :D

But this is a remark "entre nous" only, officially I have to refuse this idea, feministic exaggerations, as usually . ;)
Bertram

Bertram2

05-23-2005, 17:57

The camera not. But the lenses maybe. For a certain kind of "photographers" i could imagine this to be the true background. Thinks about some of those at P.net ! :D

But this is a remark "entre nous" only, officially I have to refuse this idea, feministic exaggerations, as usually . ;)
Bertram

"reject" I meant, sorry ! One of these embarrassing mistakes which still happen when I mix two foreign languages ( je refuse in French) which I both do not speak properly. :rolleyes:
Bertram

Sean Reid

05-23-2005, 18:09

I think you should read some of these other books when you have the time and are in the right frame of mind. You might find yourself actually enjoying them and understanding more of photography's importance, on many levels. To understand more of who and what we are, and do, is important.
.

I think I overlooked this last part of your post in replying to its substance. Having now noticed it, I'll offer a piece of advice that you can consider or reject, as you see fit. I'm constantly reminded that, when I am talking with other people on the Internet, I generally know very little about them, their backgrounds, their expertise, what they do and don't know, have or have not read or done, etc.. For one to proceed as if he or she did know these things can easily lead to many mistakes. I'd suggest that you make no assumptions about what I have or have not read, what my understanding of photography's importance might or might not be, what levels that understanding might or might not operate on, etc.. In short, you don't know me from Adam, in fact, and that's largely true for most of the people you'll meet via the Internet. That being the case, I find it better not to assume. Defend Sontag as vigorously as you'd like, but don't patronize.

Sean

aizan

05-23-2005, 18:32

Contrary to Sontag's assertions, the camera is certainly not a phallus, by any stretch of the imagination.

hehe, somebody beat you to the point. :) why can't a camera be a phallus? not ever?

FrankS

05-23-2005, 18:42

"...it's better not to assume. Defend Sontag as vigorously as you'd like, but don't patronize."

This has generally been a quality of the posts here at RFF: to honourably defend one's opinion, rather than to attack the other's.

st3ph3nm

05-23-2005, 20:13

Just in answer to the search for the (relatively) recent discussion on Sontag etc. It's to be found in a Canon P thread (where else?).

Specifically:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2844&highlight=roman+home

Dunno if that link works, but remembering the conversation, I did a search on "Roman" and "Home" and it's the thread entitled:

"A day with the Canon P + 50/1.8" started by Taffer.

Hope this helps.

Cheers all,

Steve

Doctor Zero

05-10-2007, 07:51

iml

05-10-2007, 08:41

Apologies for reviving this old thread! I've only recently started reading Susan Sontag's "On Photography". Now, I've always assumed I wasn't stupid. I may not be clever, but not stupid, either. I've a PhD (if that means anything). And I don't get it. I just don't get it. Any of it. I read paragraphs or pages and am just stunned by what to me sounds like the stereotypical intellectual goat-wool-sock-wearing stringing together of long words purportedly describing art, society, politics, love, life, the nature of reality or all of the above.

And I am sure it's all me. This is by no means a criticism of the book. I blame it on being a scientist: mention anything to do with protein chemistry and I perk up.
Presumably the books you read about chemistry and find easy to follow would be much harder for someone lacking your specialist knowledge to read and understand. By the same token, Sontag comes from an intellectual discipline that has its own language, stylistic rules, and specialist knowledge. I think people often accuse philosophers and other theorists of being pretentious when really they, the reader, are just not familiar with the traditions of the genre concerned, so find it hard to understand what is being said. (This is not meant to be patronising, btw: just as I understand little about science beyond what I read in popular science books but have a degree in philosophy so find reading Hegel a fine pursuit, you have a science degree and probably get kicks reading lots of stuff I would find completely incomprehensible).

It's also true that some of what passes for contemporary philosophy is pure guff. Anything by Deleuze & Guattari for example.

It's a while since I read On Photography but my recollection of it is that it contains about half a dozen excellent aphorisms (none of which I can now remember, but all of which seemed to contain an important truth), but no overall convincing argument. I should probably re-read it.

Ian

FrankS

05-10-2007, 08:48

Thank god it's not just me.

KoNickon

05-10-2007, 10:01

It's been my impression that once you have figured out the main point she is making, there's no significant revelation at all, but rather a reaction of "who cares?". The title "On Photography" is itself enough to make one roll one's eyes. Put it in Latin and it sounds like a papal bull.

aizan

05-10-2007, 11:01

"in the fairy tale of photography the magic box insures veracity and banishes error, compesates for inexperience and rewards innocence." p. 53

my favorite quote, especially out-of-context.

John Camp

05-10-2007, 11:22

She does have a fine line of bs, but there are ideas (abut media and images) in "On Photography" worth considering; the main problem is, those ideas were kicking around at least since the advent of pop art in the middle 50s, and she just recooked them.

The hard thing to accept about somebody who is portrayed as America's leading public intellectual is that she was wrong on just about everything she ever took a strong stand on. Read her fantasy about Cuba sometime; or, better, not.

JC

NB23

05-10-2007, 11:58

how do you say "bull ****" in chinese

Bul-Ching. But Bul-Chang is also generally accepted.

RML

05-11-2007, 01:32

You're not the only one. I've started reading the book quite some time ago (meaning, over a year ago) and it keeps me stunned. There's so much BS in that book, I'm thinking she did it on purpose. Maybe it was meant to be a sarcastic piece?

Anywa, see what I ran into here: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot.com/search?q=sontag . I don't mind showing off my stupidity, so burn me if you want. :)

iml

05-11-2007, 01:47

RML

05-11-2007, 02:10

I haven't read your whole page, but your first post seems to me to be in complete agreement with Sontag. An addiction to hyper-reality is a form of alienation, after all. Not all alienation is bad - much of it is a direct product of the fact that we are conscious beings, and therefore both in the world and simultaneously detached observers of it - so when you say "[the photographer is] addicted to seeing slices of reality that seem more real, more interesting, more alluring than reality", you are very precisely describing an aspect of alienation, one that is a prerequisite for any art.

Ian, perhaps I don't understand alienation properly but as I understand it alienation is the opposite of getting more involved with reality, of getting into the skin of reality.

On the other hand... needing something that seems more real, alluring or interesting may indeed be a facet of alienation. The larger reality is replaced by a far more narrower slice of that reality, thus alienating you from that larger reality. But, isn't that simply life? We cannot live and experience the larger reality but only a very limited subset of it, the subset that we can feel, hear, smell, see, taste, experience and "understand". Does that make us alienated? No, as it would mean that we are all alienated, which would than be the norm not deviant behaviour. IMO Sontag is really talking about alienation as in deviant behaviour, not as it being the norm.

iml

05-11-2007, 09:37

IMO Sontag is really talking about alienation as in deviant behaviour, not as it being the norm.

I think you underestimate her, I'm fairly sure Sontag would have recognised than art is impossible without some form of self-conscious distancing from reality, which is by definition an alienated consciousness. I don't think she would find anything to disagree with when you say, "On the other hand... needing something that seems more real, alluring or interesting may indeed be a facet of alienation. The larger reality is replaced by a far more narrower slice of that reality, thus alienating you from that larger reality. But, isn't that simply life?"

Reading your later post, about photography as violation, I think you make the same confusion, you read her comment that the act of taking someone's picture is a violation as a call for policing the act of photography rather than merely as an observation about the psychology of picture-taking (I'm fairly sure she would make similar observations about portrait painting too, for example). Words like "alienation" and "violation" may suggest she simply has a downer on photography, but I think that's a misreading. She's describing some of the subconscious impetus behind the the act of making a portrait more than proscribing or judging that impetus. She uses deliberately loaded words because she has a polemical bent, but the words are not necessarily inaccurate. So, I have no doubt at all that taking someone's photograph is an appropriation - i.e., a violation - of their personal space and sense of self, especially if they have not given their consent or don't like the way the result shows them, but it's also clear that such pictures can often reveal something profound about their subject. In other words, the violation is part of the reason for making the photograph in the first place, and calling it a violation is not an argument for not doing it.

As I say, it's a long time since I read the book, but I don't remember it being proscriptive of photography in the way you're reading it. I'll re-read it when I work out who borrowed my copy.

Ian

Gabriel M.A.

05-11-2007, 12:54

Here's a pretty controversial review of the book on p.net

On Photography - Review by Philip Greenspun (http://photo.net/photo/dead-trees/on-photography.html)
pfffft! "Review"?!? I think notes written on bar napkins after a meeting with colleagues who are in on a joke about the inadequacies of their own profession hardly qualifies as a review.

Gabriel M.A.

05-11-2007, 13:01

Yes, absolutely. I certainly agree with you. But isn't history for instance, someone's opinion?
Careful. Aren't cats mammals? Aren't humans mammals? You can't say that humans are cats. There are some historical accounts which are someone else's opinion, but then there are historical facts which are what they are. History deals with (and not exclusively) with both.

aizan

05-11-2007, 13:04

rml, you're basically on the same page as sontag. :D

Gabriel M.A.

05-11-2007, 13:27

She uses deliberately loaded words because she has a polemical bent, but the words are not necessarily inaccurate. So, I have no doubt at all that taking someone's photograph is an appropriation - i.e., a violation - of their personal space and sense of self, especially if they have not given their consent or don't like the way the result shows them, but it's also clear that such pictures can often reveal something profound about their subject. In other words, the violation is part of the reason for making the photograph in the first place, and calling it a violation is not an argument for not doing it.
I think you have your finger on the pulse. Usually, high-sounding words tend to either stir thought or completely shut it down due to its perceived pretentiousness.

Beethoven had the same strategy, but instead of words, he took simple chords and hyper-magnified and glorified them to stir his public. He was condescendingly amused.

RML

05-11-2007, 23:51

rml, you're basically on the same page as sontag. :D

Damn! Why couldn't she write more transparent then? I've read extensively, and even though English isn't my mother tongue I can't follow scientific treatises and such. But when it comes to philosophy (or sociology) they loose me. Perhaps because I'm not well-versed in the jargon or (and this is my opinion) because they don't understand much of their jargon themselves. It's no use IMO to use common words and then use them with an entirely different bend to it.

Still, Sontag's book rubs me the wrong way. :)

rxmd

05-12-2007, 00:49

The title, I felt, was profoundly misleading. Better titles would have been 'On Susan Sontag's Agenda' and 'On Pseudo-Analysis'. I don't mind 'difficult' books; hell, I'm still trying to read Keynes's General Theory. But it seems to me that hers was an extraordinarily one-dimensional analysis of a very complex subject, written from a position of profound ignorance and bias.
I think you are not doing Susan Sontag justice here. Firstly, you are talking about two rather different kinds of work. Keynes is difficult because he is theoretic and talks about a very abstract economic subject (money and interest) in a scientific language. Sontag is difficult because she is polemic and writes a piece on the deconstruction of the usage of a medium such as photography in the language of literary criticism. She writes in the intellectual context of poststructuralism and postmodernism where the subject of investigation is the way arguments and ideas work, and where the language of investigation is usually that of an engaged critic. Among my students I have met many who regard poststructural works as unscientific because of this, but they were really debunking them on the basis of an outer, formal criterion. Many of these authors actually have something to say, and in order to get to the point where we understand them we one simply has to live with the way they write. Reading this kind of literature takes some getting used to, just like reading economic literature requires you not to be deterred by the occasional use of mathematics. I've actually had to learn to read both (my degree is in two humanities and one engineering subjects) and I think I can say that they require rather different conceptual approaches, while neither is much easier to learn or much less theoretic than the other.

Secondly, exactly because she writes primarily as a literary and media critic, I wonder why many of us seem to assume that we should expect a non-biased position from her. It's meant as a polarising book that is supposed to make you think, not one that is meant to make you agree with it. The fact that many of her points seem unoriginal to us might be due to the fact that it was written more than forty years ago. Much of what she wrote was a lot newer and more original at the time she wrote it than if she had written it in 2007. When I read a work of this age I don't expect fundamentally new insights; I expect two things, namely (1) intellectual stimulation for myself and (2) better understanding of other works in the same intellectual context. I don't agree with Sontag on many points, I think she is very schematic and normative in her approach, but it definitely was a highly stimulating read.

Philipp

John Camp

05-12-2007, 12:41

The fact that many of her points seem unoriginal to us might be due to the fact that it was written more than forty years ago. Much of what she wrote was a lot newer and more original at the time she wrote it than if she had written it in 2007. When I read a work of this age I don't expect fundamentally new insights; I expect two things, namely (1) intellectual stimulation for myself and (2) better understanding of other works in the same intellectual context. I don't agree with Sontag on many points, I think she is very schematic and normative in her approach, but it definitely was a highly stimulating read.

Philipp

It was published 30 years ago; she herself later admitted to doubts about it. It wasn't original at the time -- because she was such a popular (or maybe just pop) figure, nobody spent a lot of time pointing out that most everything she wrote was taken from French intellectual argument, a few years late and poorly warmed over.

There have been and are a number of original and interesting women thinkers who publish on cultural matters; but I honest-to-god think that much of Sontag's impact came from the publicity photos taken at the time -- sulky, sexy, pouty shots. Coupled with these avant-garde essays, her publicity shots made her every intellectual's dream girl. If you lived through that period, you didn't have to be a wizard to notice that the "intellectual leaders" that got most of the media attention were good-looking (Gloria Steinem, Sontag, even Jane Fonda) while it was the less good-looking who did most of the heavy-lifting.

For Woody Allen's take on this, and a short-story that should be read by everyone interested in these matters, read the classic, "The Whore of Mensa," here:

http://members.tripod.com/waitalia/short-uk.html

JC