In the article “In Plato’s Cave” Susan Sontag expresses her ideas on the art of photography and how it is affecting our everyday lives. Photography started out as an amazing thing that can capture a memory worth remembering. She explains that now it is used for many other things, in some ways it’s good because people can express themselves, however it can also ruin people’s lives because pictures remember things that don’t want to be remembered. The world is made up of pictures, our lives are totally affected by pictures, our lives run off of movies and face book, for at least the newer generations of this time. We can’t help it that our lives are like this, its part of the technology that is presented to us in our ever day lives. When we read news papers, or magazines, watch TV, go on the internet, and even walk down the street. We are always affected by what they have to offer, we are all about what we see now, its never behind the picture. Face book runs a majority of teens lives and we cant help that the pictures on peoples profiles are affecting how half of their high school will think of them. Teens can alter pictures of them selves easily with our new technology, only because of what we have to look at on magazines and movies. We cant help but feel bad about our selves even when most of us know that those pictures of movie stars and models are altered, because that is what we are supposed to look like. I know that deep down every one might be a little affected personally by what most of those pictures have to offer us. I can say that I am very insecure about my self because I know that I don’t look like that even though I know that that is not what I need to look like to be happy it will always be at the back of my mind. These are just ideas off of the top on my head, and I can’t help but not like pictures right now, when I am taking pictures I love them. I really enjoy taking pictures of sunsets and mountains and horses, just nature in general. However I feel like I have nothing to do with them but post them on a facebook page of mine. I could print them and frame them, but our world is so filled with pictures that my pictures, I feel are just ordinary to every other picture, and they wouldn’t mean anything different if some one was to see them.
After writing the first paragraph of this response I realized that I don’t really like photography any more, I came into this response thinking that I was going to write about how good pictures are for our world and what beauty they can bring to our world, which it can. However now I find that I really don’t like that photography is so ordinary now, if I want to see real beauty I think that because of how many pictures there is in the world I really need to see it with my own eyes. I want to see beauty for myself; I see it all the time. I just want to see more of it. I’m trying to stay on prompt right now, but its hard to because I’m angry that my mind is changed about pictures. I though it was a beauty, another form of art, but now its normal to have and doesn’t really help anyone. I am totally agreeing with what Susan Sontag has to say about what photography offers. That it is great because of its originality that it can bring to the table but it has made everything in this world seem a little less amazing.