diptych # 79 ~ I am nothing and all
Tuesday, July 29, 2014 at 12:02PM 
curtain light ~ Phonicia, NY - in the Catskill PARK / Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
As photographers describe it, picture-taking is both a limitless technique for appropriating the objective world and an unavoidably solipsistic expression of the singular self ... The two ideals are antithetical. Insofar as photography is (or should be) about the world, the photographer counts for little, but insofar as it is the instrument of intrepid, questing subjectivity, the photographer is all. ~ Susan Sontag / Photographic Evangels
With this notion, Sontag suggests that a photographer is nothing inasmuch as he/she is simply making visual records of the world. On the other hand, inasmuch as why (intent) and how the world is recorded and represented (vision), the photographer is everything (at least so to him/herself, if not anyone else). Since Sontag considers the two "ideals" to be antithetical - directly opposed / mutually incompatible - a photographer must be one or the other: something or nothing.
However, Sontag goes on to write:
Photography is the paradigm of an inherently equivocal connection between self and world - its version of the ideology of realism sometimes dictating an effacement of the self in relation to the world, sometimes authorizing an aggressive relation to the world which celebrates the self. One side or the other of the connection is always being rediscovered and championed.
In setting up the dichotomy of "counts for little" / "effacement of self" v. "is all" / "celebrates the self", and then writing that photography is (nevertheless) the paradigm of a connection - albeit ambiguous, uncertain or questionable in nature - between self and world, seems to be quite a verbal / linguistic exercise in prevaricating around the bush inasmuch as two mutually incompatible "ideals" cannot sometimes be connected and at other times not.
Of course, if "counts for little" and "is all" are akin to oil and water, they may not ever blend into one, but they can float around together in the same containment vessel. And that "ideal" is where I come down on the matter.
In my picture making activities, I, aka: a containment vessel, try to approach the world without any prejudicial visual preconceptions, a sort of effacement of seeing, if you will. Let's call it my oil. However, when a worldly referent strikes a nerve (optical), I respond using the other element floating around inside me (aka: the containment vessel); my vision (the manner in which I represent what I see), which is, most definitely, a celebration of self. Let's call that my water.
Indeed, my oil and my water are separate elements which, nevertheless, by dint of their swirling around together in close proximity in the same pot / containment vessel, work together - a connection of sorts - to create the synergy exhibited as what one views as my pictures.
All of that written, Sontag was, one the one hand, writing about photographers (a person), and, on the other hand, photography (an activity). If one looks at what she wrote from that perspective, some, if not all, of it makes more sense.
Nevertheless, I believe a photographer can be self-effacing and self-celebratory without fear of being self-contradictory. IMO, it's not an either / or proposition; it's more a matter of balance. And it is at the intersection of that balancing act that the connection between self and world, so employed in the activity of photography, bears the most fruit. That is to write, to instigate both the maker and the viewer of pictures to rediscover and champion both the self and one's connection to the world - a real balancing act, if ever there was one.
Reader Comments (2)
That's an interesting take on Sontag's words Mark but I understood Sontag's sentiment somewhat differently.
As I understand it, the antithetical ideals that she is referring to are objectivity and subjectivity. If a photographer is to photograph the world objectively she must do so in a way where she plays no part beyond perhaps, pressing the shutter. However if the photographer is wanting to capture her relationship to the world then she must be fully invested with all her being.
Achieving either ideal is equally difficult of course but achieving both in the one moment is certainly impossible. There is no middle ground; at least not where the ideals are concerned. But the second paragraph hints to me that perhaps she saw objectivity as the only impossibility; that the ambiguous connection between self and world made it impossible to see the world from any other perspective other than self. The two sides that she writes about in the second paragraph are no longer the ideals mentioned in the first but rather the self on one side and the world on the other and photography being the means by which the connection between the two can be explored. In other words I believe she is saying the same as you; that "a photographer can be self-effacing and self-celebratory without fear of being self-contradictory."
Cedric - thanks very much for the thoughtful response. D'accord.