Susan Sontag-On Photography.
In Susan Sontag's essay On Photography, she recognises that photographs provide people (of all classes in society) with knowledge about the past and the present. She states it is more reliable than prose as it is "an interpretation" (Susan Sontag on Photography) where the image represents as she puts it "pieces of the world" Her view is one of an egalitarian practice that anybody with a camera can engage in and anybody can buy. Also, anybody can view an image, unlike some paintings that are locked away by the owners.
Sontag sees photographers as having the ability to manipulate an image to convey a standpoint. For example, members of The Farm Security Administration Project (1930s) members Dorethy Lang and Russel Lee et al "would take dozens of frontal pictures of one of their sharecropper subjects until satisfied that they had gotten just the right look on film-the precise expression on the subject's face that precise expression on the subject's face that supported their own notions about poverty, light, dignity, texture, exploitation, and geometry. In deciding how a picture should look, in prefer deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects" (Susan Sontag On Photography)
Sontag recognises the industrialisation of the western world has created a place for the camera. As the consumers society has expanded and given opportunities for all classes such as holidays and goods, the camera has been available to document this social change. She also documents the evolution of not only the camera but those using it such as aristocrats in the early C19 to a more egalitarian use by the working class later. She highlights how the camera "has become one of the principal devices for experiencing something, for giving an appearance of participation" Susan Sontag On Photography). As well as documenting the family holidays and weddings, the camera has according to Sontag captured some of the landmarks of human history such as Vietnam, Woodstock and Prague.
Finally, in reading On Photography, I feel Sontag sees the camera as an invention that has created a population of voyeurs who witness images but feel powerless to change whatever is filmed. She uses Hitchcock's Rear Window as an example, where the main protagonist is unable to assist but still, he takes images. Her view is the camera has created a symbiotic relationship between viewer, photographer and subject, that makes the process of photography perpetual.
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