Sontag's Lament: Emotion, Ethics, and Photography

Rare is the discussion of ethics and photography that does not reference Susan Sontag's groundbreaking collection of essays On Photography (1977). It was this accessible, sweeping book, quietly infused with the ideas of Barthes and Benjamin, which presented one of the first comprehensive explorations of the ethical challenges posed by the ubiquity of photography in a consumerist society. Sontag's arguments about the power and danger of photography to anesthetize its viewers are well accepted in relation to photojournalism and documentary although they were modified somewhat in her 2003 Regarding the Pain of Others. This article considers the complex ways Sontag linked photography, emotion, and ethics with particular focus on her scathing critique of Diane Arbus's work.