Photography Essay: An Analysis of Susan Sontag's 'In Plato's Cave'

This essay delves into the origins and evolution of photography, tracing its roots back to ancient practices of mummification in Egypt and the development of the camera obscura. It analyzes the perspectives of prominent authors like André Bazin and Susan Sontag, particularly focusing on Sontag's essay, 'In Plato's Cave,' and its exploration of the relationship between photography, reality, and power. The essay examines how photographs capture moments, encode memory, and can be manipulated, while also exploring the connections between photography, painting, and film, highlighting how photography has reshaped artistic practices and broadened cultural perspectives. References to key texts are included to support the analysis.

Running head: PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTOGRAPHY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The origin of photography and sculpting or plastic art can be traced back in the late 2600
B.C. in the Egypt when the Egyptian uses to mummify the dead body. The ancient Egyptian
use to believe life after death. The ancient Egyptian use to cheat death by the process of
mummification. According to author André Bazin in his journal, “Ontology of the
Photographic Image”, “there is a basic psychological need in man to outwit time and
preserving a bodily appearance is fulfilling this desire. Because, however, pyramids and
labyrinths could be pillaged, statuettes were developed as substitute mummies in case
anything was to come of the real one. This is the birth of the idea of the preservation of life
by a representation of life.”1 The invention for camera and photography was credited to
Niepce . “The first permanent photoetching was an image produced in the year 1822 by the
French inventor Nicéphore Niépce, but it was destroyed in a later attempt to make prints from
it”. With the invention of photography, the things could be represented as it was with the help
of “camera obscure”. Photographs are basically capturing the experience of one`s life.
According to the author, Susan Sontag, in the article “In Plato`s Cave”, to be photographed is
“to put oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge that can be
considered simultaneous to power”.2 However, a photograph can lie. A photograph can be
fiddle with. A photograph can be blown up, cropped up, edited, de colored and tricked out.
“Photography is indexical insofar as the represented object is imprinted by light and the
chemical or electronic process on the image, creating a visual likeness that possesses a degree
of accuracy and truthfulness unattainable in purely iconic signs such as painting, drawing, or
sculpture”. Photographs carry more weight than the paintings as it shows the actual
representing of reality in the present time. They provide information. However, there is also
1 Bazin, André, and Hugh Gray. "The ontology of the photographic image." Film Quarterly
13, no. 4 (1960): 4-9.
2 Sontag, Susan. On photography. Vol. 48. Macmillan, 2001

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a viewpoint that since it a human being who clicks the photographs although through a
camera, some degree of biasness is always involved based on one owns taste and
consciousness. A photography can invoke both empathy and provoke terror. It all depends
on how one uses the camera and the art of photography. Photography helps people to capture
moments and emotions of a particular time with their loved ones and near and dear ones.
However, photographs and cameras could also be use by the “peeping tom” and people with
“voyeuristic disorder” to prove terror.3
According to the author, Andre Bazin photographs are use encodes memory and capture time.
“A photograph is of a specific moment in time and a specific place”. It cannot be altered.
Even if the reality change, photographs remains the same.
Now talking about the relation between photographs, paintings and films, according to the
author Andre Bazin, “A photograph is of a specific moment in time and a specific place,
while art can be of any moment in any place. As result, a painting is more eternal than a
photograph. Photography ranks high in the order of surrealist creativity because it produces
an image that is a reality of nature”. According to the both film and photography have freed
the humankind from the illusion of art and paintings, as they themselves provide the exact
reality and promotes realism. “Photography crucial to the development of a range of
contemporary art forms such as conceptual and performance-based practice” Photography is
essential to change the outlook of as artist. It helps to increase the aesthetic value if an art.
Due to photography, the artists are exposed to “globally influenced, culturally diverse, and
3 Lillesand, Thomas, Ralph W. Kiefer, and Jonathan Chipman. Remote sensing and image
interpretation. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.

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technologically advancing world”. It has helped to broaden the outlook of the people and
development of various other art forms and practices in this contemporary world. 4
4 Hershberger, Andrew E. Photographic Theory: An Historical Anthology. John Wiley &
Sons, 2014.

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REFERENCES
Bazin, André, and Hugh Gray. "The ontology of the photographic image." Film Quarterly 13,
no. 4 (1960): 4-9.
Hershberger, Andrew E. Photographic Theory: An Historical Anthology. John Wiley & Sons,
2014.
Lillesand, Thomas, Ralph W. Kiefer, and Jonathan Chipman. Remote sensing and image
interpretation. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.
Sontag, Susan. On photography. Vol. 48. Macmillan, 2001