The article “On (Digital) Photography: Sontag, 34 Years Later,” A. O. Scott asks more questions than answering them. Scott regurgitates similar points Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” in 1977. Then again he is mainly but not limited to referencing Sontag. Scott mentions how Sontag predicted this overwhelming array of photography as technology in the future. And here we are smack in the middle observing her written word, knowledge. The surplus of images plus recycling of pictures floods our web experience thus leaving people like Sontag and Scott asking questions. Like why don’t we preserve the art of photography or is photography a craft anymore? Does technology and the internet take away from the strength of individual photo’s or the whole subject entirely? I don’t particularly think that great photography is diminished by the lesser advanced images. Or plagiarism as Scott speaks of cutting and pasting photos online. The recycling of an image doesn’t make it yours, it’s stealing! Sontag claims that industrialism brings forth accessibility to the camera. And that social convention demands more people to obtain and take their own photo’s. And subconsciously photography-as-art is born at least Sontag maps out this theory. It just sounds to me that the few engineer’s and professional photographer’s of the mid 1800’s were threatened by households taking over their own family portrait’s. In this day and age there is always that reluctant question, did the digital camera kill the art of film photography? No, I have to agree with Scott here and there people still treat it like a great endeavor, a ritual even. There is still certain artist’s like Sally Mann who use film and vintage camera’s at that. As consumer’s and viewer’s we have to decide on basis to basis what is everyday family photo’s compared to art. It’s a lot to file through but there is ammeter’s and then there is professional’s. Digital cameras and technology hasn’t killed the art form as far as I am concerned. It just makes the archive of scenes to look through immense and overwhelming like Scott recites.
Truth and Bone
You pick out some important points here, but overall I’d say you need to slow down and develop ideas more clearly. This is a bit of a jumble of summary and response. Separating out the two would make things easier to follow, as would breaking this into multiple paragraphs. In summary part, I think you need to do at least three things: explain Sontag’s views (as best you can tell here) from “On Photography:; explain what’s happened since then in photography; explain how, in Scott’s view, present-day photography connects to what Sontag wrote. Don’t imagine that your reader is familiar with Sontag (though Scott may be assuming some familiarity–what do you think about that?)
Then once you’ve captured, as objectively as you can, what he had to say, it’s your turn to respond. (It’s true some text-wrestling essays bounce back and forth between summary and response, but it’s more common and easier to manage of you do first one then the other. If you do a little bit of summary, then a bit of response, you need to have a response to everything the author says, and even if you do, it gives your essay the feel of a ping-pong match).
In your response, feel free to talk more specifically about your own experiences with photography!! Or you can give your own feelings about these issues–agree, disagree, open questions, implications for the art going forward, etc.
(In final draft you will also include an intro paragraphing that establishes the main topic and engages the reader. This could also connect to your own experience or to observations about how people use photography these days, or stats about photography, etc.)
Watch those apostrophes!! (Note I’m not using an apostrophe there, because it’s a plural but not a possessive…:) )