A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past-are incitements to reverie. The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic
feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance.


On Photography (ed. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011) - ISBN: 9781429957113

Susan Sontag Quotes

A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant...

A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant...

A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant...

A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant...