Throughout history, images used to portray reality, many philosophers, such as Plato, condemned art because, according to him, art is a copy of a copy, an imitation. However, there are philosophers like Aristotle who defend art by arguing that the viewer gains a certain amount of "cognitive value" from the experience of appreciating art.
According to Susan Sontag, photographs not only represent reality but also act as an imprint of reality. Photographs are possibly the most mysterious of all the things that comprise and create the world we perceive. Such photographs have the potential to replace reality since they are not simply a reflection but also a remnant of reality, something taken directly from it.
In her essay, Sontag says, "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed." In contrast to painting, photography not only addresses and represents its object but also closely resembles it, becoming a direct extension of it. Sontag says that photographs serve as proof. Something we hear about, yet the question appears to be verified when we see a picture. Humans begin to question if some events occurred as time passes; memories grow cloudier and less definite to the point where it's better to forget than live on with regrets. At this point, photographs take on their true significance and become a way to revisit past experiences, such as a baby shower picture or a picture of a different city during your tourist visit.
Susan Sontag, in her essay, tells how photographs were a powerful tool for modern states in monitoring and controlling their increasingly mobile populations by giving an example of the Paris police in the brutal roundup of Communards in June 1871.
When you take a picture of something, it becomes a part of a specific knowledge system that has been modified to fit classification and storage systems that can range from family photographs to photographs in science, politics, and law. In other words, photography is a type of surveillance.
Photographing the deceased was discouraged in the past because it was thought that doing so would seal their soul and prevent them from resting in peace. Our attitude toward photography might have not changed that much, but modern societies do not share this concern and continue to consider photography as closely connected to the physical world and a memory of it. "For at least a century, the wedding photographer has been a part of the ceremony as the prescribed verbal formulas. Cameras go with family life," Sontag said. Sontag, in her essay, emphasizes how photographs offer individuals an imagined possession of an unreal past; they assist them to gain, possession of a place in which they are uneasy.
Sontag discusses in her essay how, for the first time in history, massive numbers of people frequently travel out to different places for short visit; tourism started to boom. And with this increase in tourism photographs capture sequences that happen beyond family, friends, and neighbours. Travelling has become a method for collecting photographs. The process of taking photographs is relaxing and helps to alleviate overall sensations of confusion that are likely to be increased by travel. Most travellers feel obligated to place their cameras between themselves and anything extraordinary they come across.
According to Sontag, the widespread use of photographs sparked a "chronic voyeuristic relation" in individuals. Photography also implies that we may see something before we experience it, which diminishes the purity and openness with which we encounter reality. In other words, the reality is shot before it is experienced. Susan Sontag believes that photography is a recycled copy of reality rather than a mere duplicate of reality. We consume photos at a rising rate, and as a result, they are eaten and must be replaced.
Although there are many uses for photographs, most notably as a tool to preserve memories in tangible form. By showing others sights they would have missed and let them share in the photographer's delight, cameras are a type of imagination that can be used to glorify its use. According to Sontag, photography is not only a representation of reality but rather the embodiment of a person's memories and experiences. Cameras are a sort of imagination that can be used to glorify their usage by revealing pictures to others that they would have missed and allowing them to share in the photographer's joy.
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