Response to Susan Sontag on Photography

Response to Susan Sontag on Photography

The coming of technology brought on unimaginable new ventures--including photography. Even though images are useful when Images allow one to see situations occurring in the world; however, they are extremely limited in the way that they only use sight. Because of this, truth and actuality in images is more vulnerable to propaganda. At the same time, the impact photographs make on someone's mind is incomparable to experience.

The two-dimensional functions of pictures are a reason as to why photography cannot currently fully inform people of the world. It cannot allow someone to taste fine dining, feel a foreign breeze upon their face, hear the laughter of children, or smell a field of flowers on a bright spring day. It is limited only to what people can see. An ordinary family portrait can easily show a loving family, yet also hide the abusive father, crying mother, and confused child.

Manipulation of images is not uncommon nowadays, considering programs such as Photoshop and GIMP, but even in history people have been misled on what is genuine. Joseph Stalin, for example, was often photographed with laughing children, appearing to be delighted by their presence. It was only until after his death during the Cold War when it was revealed that he murdered millions of citizens in the oppressed Soviet Union. It was because of this propaganda that people suffered continuously at the hands of the autocrat.

Emotion can be captured in a photograph, where colors and lighting are being used to manipulate the cones and rods in a person's eyes. On March, 2011, a tsunami (which followed an 8.9 earthquake) struck Japan, causing devastation and horror worldwide. Images soon flooded the internet and newspapers as people gasped at the terror or mother nature. It can be argued that if it was not for these images surfacing, many would not realize the extent of the damage in Japan. Even so, there is only so much a photograph can do. Does a person who has seen a picture of a wandering mother know more than the woman who continuously searches for the child that was torn from her grasp by the raging sea? Pictures can only depict events and lack qualities which make one knowledgeable.