Cara Cole
2/3/11
Plato’s Cave
"A picture is worth a thousand words." I never quite understood this saying until reading Susan Sontag, On Photography: Plato’s cave. Sontag takes the art of photography and explains each realm this art form truly reaches. She discusses how a picture, more than a film or literature, tells the truth. The truth behind a photograph is something we discussed before in class and Sontag takes it much further. The truth can mean many different things, the truth of a photograph are “miniature realities” as Sontag says and that can mean anything from a crime scene photo to just the truth behind the meaning of Eggleston’s photos. Sontag sheds light on every aspect of photography, ranging from family photo albums to war photos from Vietnam. She describes a knowledge the photographer has over the person being photographed as “To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves…” This is one knowledge the photographer has over the image but she also describes photographers as having knowledge over their viewer.
Sontag describes photography as “ it means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge-and, therefore power.” I believe by the truth of a photo she means there are two truths, the truth the photographer knows and the truth the viewer sees. When you think about it as the viewer your ideas are pure speculation unless you were to ask the photographer what was meant to be known as the truth in that photo. Sontag describes having that knowledge as the photographer as power and supports her idea at the end of the chapter by saying “nevertheless, the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more than it discloses.” We, as the viewer see a different reality from the photographer, they’re knowledge of the truth of the photo keeps their power over us.
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