From many delicious extractable quotes in the politico- intellectual 1969 work by Susan Sontag On Photography, this one clarifies one of the reasons taking photographs can be reassuring:
“The camera makes reality atomic, manageable, and opaque. It is a view of the world
which denies interconnectedness,
continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery (from http://www.scribd.com).
I don't agree with Sontag that it denies interconnectedness, but it does atomize our reality, and we love photography for this fragmentation, for the disassembling of what we can experience as the chaotic and relentless whoosh of time. And the fixing of an instant.
We slow down, we stand still in the moment. The shutter-eye blinks in the scene before us.
We have observed what there was in that moment and we have incorporated it into the memory of our tiny disk. In our unique way we possess the scene, we can pretend we own the vision.
I don't agree with Sontag that it denies interconnectedness, but it does atomize our reality, and we love photography for this fragmentation, for the disassembling of what we can experience as the chaotic and relentless whoosh of time. And the fixing of an instant.
We slow down, we stand still in the moment. The shutter-eye blinks in the scene before us.
We have observed what there was in that moment and we have incorporated it into the memory of our tiny disk. In our unique way we possess the scene, we can pretend we own the vision.
