This week, we step back a second from the images we make and see, to present a book on the subject by a writer ,whom by her own admission, was obsessed with photography: Susan Sontag
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On Photography : Susan Sontag
We were given this book as a gift many years ago. As a matter of fact it was originally a series of essays in The New York Review Of Books in the seventies. It was first published in book form in 1977.

An important thoughful book, you may not agree with all of the opinions, but you will process them. And look around you in a different way perhaps.
6 essays on the imagery in our world.

As one person has put it: “who after seeing Ansel Adams’s stunning photographs of Yosemite could help feeling slightly underwhelmed when experiencing the real thing? Certainly, Yosemite in person retains a certain cachet simply for its “bigness”, but the mystique, the mysticism of the Adams photo is going to be missing from most people’s experience of the real place. The image genie is out of the bottle…”

Some reviews:

“A brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking at the world and at ourselves over the last 140 years.”—Washington Post Book World
“Every page of On Photography raises important and exciting questions about its subject and raises them in the best way.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A book of great importance and originality . . . All future discussion or analysis of the role of photography in the affluent mass-media societies are now bound to begin with her book.”—John Berger
“Not many photographs are worth a thousand of [Susan Sontag's] words.”—Robert Hughes, Time
“After Sontag, photography must be written about not only as a force in the arts, but as one that is increasingly powerful in the nature and destiny of our global society.”—Newsweek
“On Photography is to my mind the most original and illuminating study of the subject.”—Calvin Trillin, The New Yorker

Susan Sontag passed away in 2004. But she left an incredible body of work. This is one we wanted to share with you.

On Wednesday the email for this item goes out to our subscriber list .If you’re on the email list, and you are one of the first 5 people to respond to this email with a shipping address you will be sent a copy of this book, gratis. Worldwide. If you don’t get it here, you should seek it out and have a read.

So in one week we have given away a DVD on basic digital photography and another on the effects of photography.

We know its a pretty broad range, but thats what this site is about. Inspire, educate and entertain.

The entertaining part is coming. We promise.

Cheers!

Damon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 12:05 am and is filed under Weekly Giveaway. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.