A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an inte…

Susan Sontag
253 citations
A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask. ✨ New York Review of Books 23 June 1977
Death Reading Sadness
8

More Author Quotes

As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure. ✨ Susan Sontag (2011). On Photography, p.10, … ▶
The past itself, as historical change continues to accelerate, has become the most surreal of subjects - making it possible... to see a new beauty in what is vanishing. ✨ Susan Sontag (2011). On Phot … ▶
Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.
Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. … ▶
I am profoundly uncertain how to write. I know what I love and what I like, because it's a direct passionate response. But when I write, I'm very uncertain whether it's good enough. That is, of cours … ▶

A photograph is not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask. ✨ New York Review of Books 23 June 1977

More Author Quotes

Most Cited Authors

The Best Quotes

Most Liked Authors

Curated Author Quotes