Person
Susan Sontag
Iconic essayist whose On Photography examined the ethics and aesthetics of image-making.
Writing that references this work:
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How Photography Became Art—and Who Got to Decide
The camera made authorship difficult to see. Courts, critics and museums responded by treating pose, timing, printing and selection as evidence of an artist. Their answer admitted photography into art…
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Why I Reject the Pretense of Documentary Neutrality
Neutrality taught me useful disciplines: verify, do not stage and do not let a caption outrun the evidence. It also taught me to mistake professional restraint for the absence of…
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A Postmodern Defense of Street Photography Against Susan Sontag’s Moralism
Sontag diagnosed postmodern image culture, then judged it with a modernist moral vocabulary. A committed postmodernist defends street photography through situated responsibility, not innocence.
