Born: 16 January 1933, New York, New York, United StatesDied: 28 December 2004, New York, New York, United States
From very early on in my learning, it became very clear that Susan Sontag, and specifically her book On Photography, were an integral part of the course. So I bought the book and read it from cover to cover.
It was an incredibly hard read, especially as it was probably my first ever text book as an adult. That aside, I disagreed with virtually everything she said in it. Having read parts of it again three years later and being much the wiser for it, it has proved to be a game changer for me & an education about retaining an open mind and ‘reading on..!’.
It helped me immensely when having to read the likes of Barthes and Szarkowski. I realised that these ‘movers and shakers’, these forward thinkers, would often take the accepted understanding of something and turn it on its head. I could see this with On Photography but initially thought that she was only acting as a provocateur.
The big thing that I struggled with initially was that she wasn’t a photographer, she was an outsider! What right did she have to say anything to ‘us’ photographers! Oh how I smile now!!
I see! 