Phenomenology of Photography

08May12

Crowther, Paul. ‘The Phenomenology of Photography’ Phenomenology of the Visual Arts (even the frame) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009) 139-142 p.139 [cites Bourdieu] Bourdieu’s point here is that photography is more than common visual communication, but it, nevertheless, so useful in terms of its mundane social documentary functions that these functions always subvert attempts to […]

Filed under: Images and reality, Indexicality & Photography, Medium Specificity, Paul Crowther, Phenomenology, Roland Barthes, Space and photography, Susan Sontag, Time and photography   |  Leave a Comment

In Plato’s Cave

23Sep11

Sontag, Susan. ‘In Plato’s Cave’ On Photography (London: Penguin Books, 1979) 3-24 p.3 In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. Finally the most grandiose […]

Filed under: "We live to be photographed", Ambiguity and Photography, Books, Content vs Materiality of Photographs, Context and photography, Essays, Images and reality, Mechanical Reproduction, Melancholy/Death & Photography, Nostalgia for analogue photography, Photograph as Document, Photograph as object, Photography as Historical Witness, Susan Sontag   |  Leave a Comment

On snapshot photography: Rethinking photographic power in public and private spheres

02Feb11

Zuromskis, Catherine. ‘On snapshot photography: Rethinking photographic power in public and private spheres’ Photography: Theoretical Snapshots (Oxon: Routledge, 2009) p.49-62 p.49 [discusses Sontag’s essay ‘Regarding the torture of others…’ As more and more photographs are taken and consumed, Sontag argues, the world is atomized into a series of disconnected images and anecdotes. The article, in my […]

Filed under: Catherine Zuromskis, Photograph as Document, Susan Sontag, Vernacular Photography, War & Photography   |  1 Comment

The Image-World

27May10

Sontag, Susan. ‘The Image-World’ On Photography (London: Penguin Books,  1979) p.153 [On the contrary,] the new age of unbelief strengthened the allegiance to images. The credence that could no longer be given to realities understood in the form of images was now given to realities understood to be images, illusions. [In the preface to the […]

Filed under: Images and reality, Susan Sontag   |  Leave a Comment