Sommer, Frederick.All Children are Ambassadors/Alle Kin-
der sind Botschafter. Munich: Nazraeli Press, 1992.
Sommer, Frederick.The Box. Munich: Nazraeli Press, 1994.
Sommer, Frederick.Sommer Words/Sommer Images. Tuc-
son, Arizona: Center for Creative Photography, 1984.
Torosian, Michael, ed.Frederick Sommer: The Constella-
tions that Surround Us, The Conjunction of General Aes-
thetics and Poetic Logic in the Artist’s Life. Toronto:
Lumie`re Press, 1992.SUSAN SONTAG
American
One of the most eclectic and eminent essayists of
modern culture, Susan Sontag was extremely in-
strumental in widening photography’s intellectual
appreciation. Her six articles on photography, pub-
lished between 16 October 1973 and 23 June 1977
inThe New York Review of Books, initiated a ser-
ious dialogue within academia concerning not only
the status of photography as a fine art form, but
also its potential for conveying meaning about the
real world. Revised, expanded, and collected under
the titleOn Photography, these essays are still con-
sidered to be of fundamental importance for any
scholar of photography.
Sontag was born in New York City in 1933. She
was raised in Tuscon, Arizona and in Los Angeles,
California, and at the age of 15 attended the Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley. The following year, she
transferred to the University of Chicago, from which
she graduated in 1951. At Harvard University, she
studied English literature (M.A., 1954) and philoso-
phy (M.A., 1955). The following year, she studied in
Paris (Sorbonne) on a scholarship and at Oxford.
Upon her return to New York, Sontag began to
teach philosophy in a number of colleges and univer-
sities, and she establish her reputation as an innova-
tive writer in a range of subjects that extend from
AIDS to camp, fascist aesthetics to pornographic
literature, modern art and music to drugs. In the
1960s, Sontag’s essays, mostly published in The
New York Review of Books,Commentary,andParti-
san Review, and the success of her first novel,The
Benefactor,securedherinternationalattention.
The 1970s are marked by the writer’s keen inter-
est in photography. Taking part in what is often
described as the ‘‘photo boom,’’ Sontag added her
authoritative voice to the growing discussion on the
subject and helped promote photography as a sub-
ject worthy of social and philosophical considera-
tions. At the beginning of the fall of 1973, Sontag
began publishing a series of essays on photography
inThe New York Review of Books. In April 1975,
she participated in a well-attended series of lectures
held at Wellesley College entitled ‘‘Photography
within the Humanities.’’ In 1977, with the publica-
tion ofOn Photography, Sontag secured not only
the intellectual prestige of photography, but also
her own international standing alongside such
well-known photographic critics as Walter Benja-
min and John Berger.
Sontag’s seminal work on photography is com-
posed of six sections and a concluding collection of
64 quotations on photography. In it, she emphasizes
that although photographs appear to have a more
direct and accurate relation to reality than any other
representation, they actually fabricate a new and
parallel reality. According to Sontag, photography’s
message—and also its aggression—reside in its seem-
ingly passive registration of reality.
In the first section ofOn Photographyentitled
‘‘In Plato’s Cave,’’ Sontag defines photography as
an art of the masses and argues that its introduc-
tion in modern culture has promoted a discontin-
uous or fragmentary experience of the world.
With the increased popularity and accessibility of
photography, people have come to see the world
as a potential photograph, a voyeuristic practice
that has the effect of leveling the meaning of all
events. From the beginning, Sontag argues that
the camera interprets reality and converts experi-
ence. She also suggests that the act of taking a
photograph is an empowering one insofar as it
provides a false but convincing knowledge of its
‘‘real’’ subject. Photography, which appears to
document reality, provides people with an imagin-
ary possession of the world. Indeed, Sontag
defines the camera as a predatory weapon thatSOMMER, FREDERICK