My Thoughts about Regarding the Pain of Others Chapters 1-3

The title clearly does not leave much to the imagination: here I will write down my thoughts on this book by Susan Sontag as part of History of Narrative Lesson 3.

Read the 3 chapters of Susan Sontag's "Regarding the Pain of Others."

What are your thoughts about it? How does it change how you see photographs of brutality or suffering? What concepts/ ideas can you bring to your own art practice?

Honestly I did find it quite an interesting read. Here is what I thought about it:

In the first three chapters, there is a very strong emphasis on talking about the image as a record of the atrocities and violence of war. Be it be a series of prints or photographs of war and its victims. The images try to elicit some sense of feeling in the viewer whether it is to promote or discourage war and its ideals.

I felt the chapters served as an interesting foretaste (since these were just the first few chapters) about how images and captions capture the emotions especially those of pain and suffering of people in those events. Images create a sense of intimacy and sorrow for the individuals depicted perhaps almost as much as if you were there yourself. They serve to be windows into hellish experiences that we could only dream of (or not dream of) facing ourselves.

In particular the chapters talked about photography in war. What I found interesting was when the book covered albeit briefly about the difference between looking at invented horror that is fantasy or artistic depictions of non-real life tragedies and brutal and raw images of real life horror.

Another thing that was touched on that appealed to me was how photography can and has been staged in war. By adding or removing objects, people (dead and alive) and changing the location, the photographs have greater effect on our heartstrings that is, until it is found out they were staged. But does that really change or lessen how atrocious such war events really were? I feel the third chapter really

How does it change how I see photographs of brutality or suffering?

First of all, I actually feel more skeptical and analytical about war photographs I see. Many War photographs like those about the Vietnam War are certainly not staged (or could they?), however many other photos could very well show real war scenes but altered slightly. So now I think I cannot look at photographs with such naivete anymore.

What concepts/ ideas can you bring to your own art practice?

As was discussed in the book, the impact of photography lies in its accessibility and the fact that anyone, amateur and professional alike can make “good photography.” This latter point is because of the effects of chance, being at the right place at the right time, and spontaneity on the part of the photographer. It is this spontaneity, rawness, imperfection, and elements of chance and surprise that I feel could be added to my works and practice which I feel is perhaps too fixated on “perfection, precision and smoothness.”