ABSTRACT
On Photography galvanized the photographic community. On Photography succeeds in being profoundly skeptical about the medium. The advent of digital images makes Susan Sontag's fear of an image-flooded world visionary. "Sontag's claims about photography, as well as her mode of argument, have become part of the rhetorical "tool kit" that photography theorists and critics carry around in their heads". Michael Starenko, "Sontag's Reception", Afterimage. Sontag's assessment of photography was successful in denying the medium any form of ethical agency, especially in the context of the American military aggression in Vietnam. Sontag was able to build momentum and intrigue from her readership before the final version of the book was published in 1977. The application of ideas expressed in On Photography in the realms of political science and politics were also fostered by Sontag's own work in Sarajevo during the Yugoslavian Civil War.
