"On Photography" by Susan Sontag

From January to the end of February I was feeling particularly proud of myself and my reading goals. I had made my way through 6 books, written 6 reviews, and was making excellent progress on my self-imposed reading goal for the year: read all the books bought for or loaned to you, keep what you like. Since the end of February I have read eight books, written zero reviews, and deviated from my goal only once to read something I purchased for myself earlier this year. What could possibly have been the reason for my sudden silence? Why, pray tell, did I disappear from this inconsequential hobby? Did my spark of enthusiasm dissipate with the longest month of the school year? (No but ask any schoolteacher and they will tell you: March is brutal).

The answer comes in the innocent shape of a collection of essays entitled On Photography, by Susan Sontag.

Up until February 28^th, 2025, the closest I ever came to Susan Sontag was being in possession of this little volume and encountering her insightful quotes on social media. Beyond that, I knew nothing about her. Little did I know that this book lay waiting for me, dormant, quiet, patient, plotting my total obliteration and undoing.

At first glance, the book seems light and straightforward (all essays do, anyways) with titles on its contents page such as “In Plato’s Cave” (who doesn’t love Plato’s cave?), “America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly” (nice reference, Sontag), “Melancholy Objects” (I feel like Shirley Jackson would love that), “The Heroism of Vision” (okay, maybe the titles start to get more serious), “Photographic Evangels,” and “The Image-World” (well…everything is uphill and then downhill, right?). But before I knew it, I found myself where I do not like to be: seen.

Perhaps some other time in the future I will write a more in-depth analysis of the essays, reread more slowly, supplement with additional reading and research. At this first reading, I was voracious. I consumed it in 9 days and fell quiet afterwards. As someone who can almost not bear to look at pictures of themselves, despises the self-aggrandizing nature of social media, and finds picture taking as a tourist to be grotesque and irritating, these essays spoke to something deep within me. I can only end this review with the first thing I underlined from the first essay:

Finally, the most grandiose result of the photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads – as an anthology of images. -Susan Sontag