Susan Sontag excerpt from On Photography
Quote 1: “To collect photographs is to collect the world. Movies and television programs light up walls, flicker, and go out; but with still photographs the image is also an object, lightweight, cheap to produce, easy to carry about, accumulate, store”.
I really liked this quote. It's true because it is more sentimental and memorable to have physical photographs with us. Collecting these is to collect the world and keep memories from our “own world” that we are able to look at in the future. When we take photographs we do it to remember the moments. Collecting these memories and being able to carry them around or store with us is beautiful.
Quote 2: A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what's in the picture.
Reading this sentence made me think about how many people get annoyed that someone is always taking pictures in social settings nowadays. Especially having a mobile device, we are able to carry a camera with us and capture the special moments with our loved ones. I personally am one of those people who always takes pictures when I’m out in social gatherings. It’s nice to look back at those memories and remember what had happened that day and who I was with. I feel like the whole “you’re not living in the present” is an exaggeration (to an extent).
NY Times: How Carrie Mae Weems Rewrote the Rules of Image-Making
Quote 1: “Photography can enslave and revictimize, Weems has shown us; it can also, potentially, set us free from our inherited bias and expectations' '”.
Weems showed us this by using the photographs of African Americans and former slaves in which she encircled the subjects so that they appear to be held captive by the lens. This, as the article said, restored tenderness and humanity to the subjects. Although many people had to go through these situations, weem’s was able to show the pain that history tries to erase, forget about or brush under the rug.
Quote 2: “There’s no man greater than you. You are greater than no other man.’ This is the bedrock of my understanding, the bedrock of my belief system that really was instilled very, very early in my life, and repeated throughout my life, this idea that we had a right to be there”.
I really resonated with this quote and it is something my own mother had always told me growing up. This says a lot about what type of person someone is and for Weem’s to implement that to her life we can see how she is able to create and connect with so many people.
Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems’s Landmark “Kitchen Table Series”
Quote 1: “I think that most work that’s made by Black artists is considered to be about Blackness. Unlike work that’s made by white artists, which is assumed to be universal at its core.”
This sentence really stood out to me, there has definitely been so much art work by white artists that are seen as something that can be universal and profound. Although of course unique to their own experience most it would be geared towards other white people. As seen in Weems’ Kitchen Table series I feel like anyone can find similarities within her work and understand what emotions she is portraying.
Quote 2: “Viewers may not be able to see the world outside of the kitchen’s walls, but her characters are trying to navigate it all the same”.
As we talked about in class, we aren’t included in the life of the muse but we are more of bystanders who can understand what is going on within those kitchen walls. She portrays intimate and vulnerable moments of these characters.
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