behind his or her camera, creating a tiny element of another world: the image-world that bids to outlast us all.” (Pg. 11). This is a good description of what I feel like photographers attempt to do to us. They try to take us to that tropical island, go to a bar and meet a beautiful woman because of a Coors in our hand, or to look at that M & M’s ad and think “Sexy” and then proceed to go buy a bag for our girlfriends. They try to take us to their little element of another world, their imaginary little reality that they try to make ours. The camera is a tool to shoot and the capture something or someone as Susan Sontag illustrates here: “…there is something predatory in the act of taking a picture. To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.” (pg. 14). When you take a picture of someone, they can then see themselves as everyone else can see them but more importantly as the photographer sees them. When you take a picture of something, you change the mannerism and attitude of the subject. People either enjoy having their picture taken or do not. Either way you are going to see a distinct difference in their body language and how they interact with the camera and photographer. Sontag expresses her thoughts on the issue: “An ugly or grotesque subject may be moving because it has been dignified by the attention of the photographer” (pg. 15). The subject in this photograph is normally not given attention and is amazed and apparently delighted to have the focus of the camera. It feels moved to have this time, energy, and creativity devoted to its movement showing how things alter their reality in the presence of a camera.Photographs help people to escape the normalcy of their reality and go to another, happier place just for ...
