Susan Sontag's On Photography is a seminal and groundbreaking work on the subject. Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form. Photographs are everywhere, and the 'insatiability of the photographing eye' has profoundly altered our relationship with the world. Photographs have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify ...
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Susan Sontag's On Photography is a seminal and groundbreaking work on the subject. Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form. Photographs are everywhere, and the 'insatiability of the photographing eye' has profoundly altered our relationship with the world. Photographs have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and act as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify us. In these six incisive essays, Sontag examines the ways in which we use these omnipresent images to manufacture a sense of reality and authority in our lives. 'Sontag offers enough food for thought to satisfy the most intellectual of appetites'The Times 'A brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking at the world, and at ourselves'Washington Post 'The most original and illuminating study of the subject'New Yorker One of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004. Her books include four novels and numerous works of non-fiction, among them Regarding the Pain of Others, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, At the Same Time, Against Interpretation and Other Essays and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963, all of which are published by Penguin. A further eight books, including the collections of essays Under the Sign of Saturn and Where the Stress Falls, and the novels The Volcano Lover and The Benefactor, are available from Penguin Modern Classics.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Sontag's classic on, according to the flap copy, the 'wide range of problems, both aesthetic and moral, raised by the presence of the photographed image', exploring lensmen from Atget to Arbus. Cover designer Jacqueline Schuman, who here incorporates a frame-within-a-frame mid-19th century daguerreotype, is also noted for her wallpaper-inspired covers for E. P. Dutton's Barbara Pym series and the Deco-influenced Colette titles published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux's Noonday imprint. Has a tight, square spine with a clean, unmarked interior and some cosmetic creasing to front cover and spine. 207 pp. Art.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
"On Photography" is a classic work on photography.
Louis David T
Apr 14, 2011
For anyone seriously intersted in photography
I don't know why it took me so many years to find and read this book. My copy is now filled with my notes in the margins of many pages. She can fascinate with her amazing insight into the essence of photography, or infuriate with some of her sweeping statements. What is photography? Why do we take photographs? Is a photograph art? ...and how did photography influence art? Even with the promiscuous imaging of today made possible by digital technology, her writing is just as powerful and applicable in 2011 as it was when she wrote this book.
If you are serious about photography, then Sontag's book is invaluable.
Clifford T
Jan 28, 2011
NOT A SINGLE PICTURE
This a rare photography book - not a single photograph from beginning to end - and all the better for it. Sontag is such a brilliantly descriptive writer you can forget all about a picture being worth a thousand words.
There's not a word about histograms or white balance setting just startling insights into how photography has influenced the way we see the world and society
Melody1
May 29, 2010
The book was a bit too "esoteric," and didn't actually talk about photography or technique. More about her idea on how society sees the idea of photography. Honestly, I didn't finish reading it.
