An Analysis of Susan Sontag’s On Photography

Susan Sontag’s 1997 text, On Photography, brought photographic theory into the university classroom with its staunch defence of the medium as art and inspired a new wave of Marxist Criticism in the field. Sontag explains the way in which we are addicted to images and depend on them for knowledge of our surroundings and the problems and challenges this causes. Already an established academic figure, Sontag brought Walter Benjamin’s theories in into the academic mainstream. The book retains its relevance in the everyday world because of the applicability of its ideas to the world of digital photography.