Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag: In Plato’s Cave

Reading In Plato’s Cave by Susan Sontag I realized that for Sontag, taking a picture was the equivalent to invading someone’s privacy to the extent that she related it to sex, rape and other sexual terms which are looked down on as negative in our society. However, my perception of In Plato’s Cave is that yes, to take a photo of someone is immortalizing them as well as invading a personal and private space; however, for me it is not at all that same as getting so close to someone like you would with sex, invade their privacy like rape or a Peeping Tom. For me it is more like creating a close and personal yet spiritual connection with my subject; may it be human or an inanimate object. When I take a picture I see it as saving a moment in time that you will never be able to get back and immortalizing that moment, because that picture will live on forever and ever. This is one point in which Susan Sontag and I agree in her book in the chapter In Pluto’s Cave. Photography for me has been an outlet in my life. It helps me cope with things that are going on in my life good or bad, and by photographing something beautiful and forever immortalizing it relaxes me. Also ever since I started with photography I have been seeing the world differently. I see everything as beautiful in their own way, and I always look at objects or people and I see how I would take a photo of them and there the light would hit just right. Yes, taking a photo is forever holding that moment or person in history, but it is also a beautiful connection with that object or person. Not one there is a violent intrusion, but one of a beautiful and calming moment in life.