Response to Sontag "On Photography"

According to Sontag, the purpose of cameras are to take photos which "democratize all experiences by translating them into images"(pg.7). So when you look at a photo, you are not just looking at an image, you are looking at an experience. The experience a person sees in a photo is a "narrowly selective transparency"(pg.6). Sontag explains a photo this way because even though a photo shows reality, it is still an interpretation of the world. The photographer puts their own mark on a photo by deciding how they take the photo, in what light they take the photo, the time of the photo, and what exposure they use. All of these aspects affect how the photo will be interpreted by later generations.
Sontag views photographs as an expression of "a feeling both sentimental and implicitly magical," and sees them as "attempts to contact or lay claim to another reality"(pg.16). When an speculator looks at a photo, they get a certain feeling and attitude form the photo. It can make a person fell happy or sad, angry or grateful.
Sontag explains how a photo only "show[s] shock insofar as they show something novel"(pg.19). Her point is that the more times a person is exposed to a certain type of image, the less "surprise" there is in seeing that type of image, and the less real the photo becomes. The main example of this which she bases her book on is on the pain and suffering of others. I agree with her view that the more we are exposed to the horrible truths of the world, the more "normal" they become, making the real reality of the events seem less shocking and more ordinary and immanent. An example of this today would be the war in Iraq. Photos of the war are still seen all over the news, but because it has been going on for so many years and we have been exposed to so many photos, the shameful truth has become less atrocious.