On Photography
by Susan Sontag
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
A new edition of Susan Sontag’s groundbreaking critique of photography—its problems, politics, and possibilities.
“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed,” Sontag writes in the opening pages of On Photography, which went on to influence generations of theorists, film critics, and readers everywhere. Originally published in the 1970s, her groundbreaking collection remains uncannily prescient and profoundly precise.
With her singular searching eye, and her refusal to buckle under received wisdom, she presents a rousing critique of the functions of imagery—to seduce, to advertise, to evoke, to commemorate, to conspire, to conceal—across six essays. The result is a damning portrait of the ways we use imagery to manufacture reality and authority that feels as if it were written today.
Arts & PhotographyPhotography & VideoCriticism & EssaysHistory & CriticismCriticism
RELEASED2025
PUBLISHERPicador
LENGTH224
LANGUAGEEN
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Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include *On Photography*, *Against Interpretation*, *Styles of Radical Will*, *The Way We Live Now*, *Illness as Metaphor*, *Regarding the Pain of Others*, *The Volcano Lover*, and *In America*. Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as "one of the most influential critics of her generation." **Source**: [Susan Sontag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag) on Wikipedia.
On Photography
by Susan Sontag
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
A new edition of Susan Sontag’s groundbreaking critique of photography—its problems, politics, and possibilities.
“To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed,” Sontag writes in the opening pages of On Photography, which went on to influence generations of theorists, film critics, and readers everywhere. Originally published in the 1970s, her groundbreaking collection remains uncannily prescient and profoundly precise.
With her singular searching eye, and her refusal to buckle under received wisdom, she presents a rousing critique of the functions of imagery—to seduce, to advertise, to evoke, to commemorate, to conspire, to conceal—across six essays. The result is a damning portrait of the ways we use imagery to manufacture reality and authority that feels as if it were written today.
Arts & PhotographyPhotography & VideoCriticism & EssaysHistory & CriticismCriticism
RELEASED2025
PUBLISHERPicador
LENGTH224
LANGUAGEEN
Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include *On Photography*, *Against Interpretation*, *Styles of Radical Will*, *The Way We Live Now*, *Illness as Metaphor*, *Regarding the Pain of Others*, *The Volcano Lover*, and *In America*. Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and communism and leftist ideology. Although her essays and speeches sometimes drew controversy, she has been described as "one of the most influential critics of her generation." **Source**: [Susan Sontag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag) on Wikipedia.
