Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/13
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Hello,
you make this sound as though she were writing apropos of Nachtwey, which
she was not. She doesn't mention Nachtwey in that essay ("In Plato's Cave"),
(although she does mention McCullin, one of your good guys iirc). Nor is she
likely even to have been thinking about Nachtwey, since he did not come to
prominence until approx. 1980, whereas "On Photography" was published in
1971, and the essay was presumably written and published at least a year
earlier.
Nor does she offer any evidence to support her claim. The claim may or may
not be true (I think it is false), but she immediately precedes the fragment
you quoted with "After 30 years a saturation point *may* have been reached"
(my emphasis).
Selective quoting out of context is a game we can all enjoy. Here are 2 more
from La Sontag:
"Each still photograph is a privileged moment. Photographs like [...] naked
South Viewnamese girl [...] Probably did more to increase public revulsion
against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarities."
"The taste for quotations (and for the juxtaposition of incongruous
quotations) is a Surrealist taste."
Unfortunately it does little to increase knowledge or understanding.
Cheers,
Bob
>From: ARTHURWG@aol.com
>
>Sontag (Apropos of Nachtwey):
>
>"In the last decades, 'concerned photography' has done at least as much to
>deaden conscience as to arouse it."
>
>Arthur
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