On Photography

English original edition!

Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography poses powerful questions about the moral and aesthetic tasks surrounding the art form. Photographs are everywhere, and the "insatiation of the photographic eye" has fundamentally changed our relationship to the world. Photographs have the power to shock, idealize or seduce, they create a sense of nostalgia and serve as a memorial, and they can be used as evidence against us or to identify us. In these six concise essays, Sontag examines how we use these ubiquitous images to create a sense of reality and authority in our lives.

"Sontag offers enough food for thought to satisfy the most intellectual appetite," says the Times

"A brilliant analysis of the profound changes that photographic images have wrought in the way we view the world and ourselves," Washington Post

"The most original and insightful study on the subject" New Yorker

One of America's best known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004.