PHOTOGRAPHY: EVIDENCE OF LIFE

Journal #4

An interpretation of a few ideas presented in Susan Sontag's essay "In Plato's Cave."

"A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened" - Susan Sontag

Photography is a tool that is widely available to everyone. It is a tool that allows us to capture anything. The things we capture in pictures seem somehow more important to us than the things we don't capture. To us, the images we make become evidence to our lives, frozen in time for all to see.

A couple ways photography can be used as evidence:

• Evidence of family memories
• Evidence of travel

FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY

Capturing and recording memories of families is one of the earliest uses of photography, according to Sontag. Photographs become proof of a family’s memories. Parents take pictures of their children. Couples take pictures of themselves to remember the moments they’ve spent together. A photograph becomes a tangible thing that people can hold on to, display, and pass around to one another.

Example:
Every holiday my family spends together, a camera is always present. Usually it’s my mom who is using it. She is constantly snapping photos us my sister and I opening presents at Christmas, or blowing out candles during birthdays. The pictures that are taken during these holidays become a way for us to look back upon these days as proof that they occurred.

My mom with presents she receved on her 47th birthday.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TOURISM

When people travel someplace out of their normal routine, especially for pleasure, it seems unnatural for them not to bring a camera along. “Photography will offer indisputable evidence that the trip was made, that the program was carried out, that the fun was had” (Sontag). Cameras are something you would almost expect to see with someone who is on a vacation.

Example:
A camera is something that I never travel without. I often have to bring a completely separate bag just for the camera and all the stuff that goes with it. On the trips I photograph everything. The people I’m with, the places I go, and the things I do. When I come home from these trips the pictures I shot are used as tools to show other people the things I’ve done. They become my evidence that I went outside my normal routine life.

Various photographs from trips I've taken.