History in Split Seconds

Susan Sontag argues that photography is extremely misleading and “hides more information than it discloses.” According to Sontag, pictures do not tell time or narrate full stories, and the limited knowledge that can be conveyed through images always contains “some kind of sentimentalism.” Though Sontag believes photography is an addicting “aesthetic consumerism” that restricts understanding, I disagree. Images are vital for learning and reflecting.

Though a photograph only captures one moment in time, it can still tell many details about that particular moment—the place, event, people, emotions etc. It can even tell time (unlike what Sontag thinks). For example, in my photo, I can tell that I was at Disney many years ago, as a four year old, happily visiting Goofy. I do not view this photo as misleading “mental pollution.” Even though it might not show my full Disney adventure, it still captures the good memories that I want to be able to look back to in the future. Without this picture, I might not have ever known/recalled anything about this event. It is the sentimentalism of photos that make them so precious—they have the amazing ability to preserve raw emotion. Because of this people continue to document history with photography; photography possesses the special ability to both show change and preserve time in a split second.