On Photography

Susan Sontag's essay On Photography starts by diving into seeing photography as a direct correlation to Plato's cave. Plato was a famous Greek philosopher who has had a great influence on Western thought and civilization. Plato's cave, is one of his thought-provoking arguments, in which he encourages us to think intelligently for ourselves. The story is about these prisoners trapped in a dark cave, one day one of the prisoners escapes the cave and explore the world. He returns to the other prisoners in the cave to tell them all about the world he's seen, a world unimaginable. The prisoners refuse to believe a world he says is the truth because to them all their reality has been is the darkness inside the cave, because they've known nothing but darkness. From this mass media has used photographs to manipulate the world we see around us. Yes, the argument is there that it can help expand what we see in our world. But it limits what we see as well. It shows the viewer what the photographer wants them to see as a reality.  We accept photographs as facts, when in fact 90% of photographs in today's world are posed/staged. To show what is wanted to be shown not the honest truth. However we are able to see more of the world, we no longer are confined to our small sheltered world. We can see the Great Pyramid's, we can travel to Africa, dive hundreds of feet underwater. We can see anything. Photography has opened up the world to everyone.   Sontag delves into how photographs are smaller duplication's of reality. But as she inserted the metaphor of Plato's caves I believe that is not exactly what she believes photographs to be. Photograph's show "a" reality but not the reality, the shadows in the cave to the prisoners were just as real as the world was to the man that escaped into. Each reality is different. I believe photographs help us get one step closer to understanding the reality of others but there main point she gets a across to us is: There is no one true reality. 

Photography has expanded our view of the world around us, it's opened up so many portals. But photography has also shrunken our world, it's made our world more accessible, it's made the world become closer.  It's a way to show things when words are not enough, it's about seeing events and things through another person's eyes, another reality. It's the closest way to see out of the eyes of another. It's a way to show other what I myself see through a lens.