The Photographer's Mind

INTRODUCTION: DEMOCRATIC PHOTOGRAPHY

“It’s all automatic. All I have to do is press the button. It’s a camera that every amateur buys. [pause, points to his head] It’s all in there.”

HELMUT NEWTON

Atradition has grown up in photography that serious comment and writing is aimed at a detached audience—people who are not expected to go out and attempt anything similar for themselves. When Susan Sontag wrote On Photography, I don’t think she was expecting her readers to enter the fray themselves by taking photographs. She begins with the assumption that readers will be looking at already-taken photographs: “…being educated by photographs…anthology of images…To collect photographs is to collect the world.” When she discusses photography by ordinary ...