In Plato’s Cave Summary
This chapter goes over the many roles that photography plays in society. It takes a look at how people now have become somewhat addicted to taking photographs but everyone does it for a slightly different reason. Some of the reasons that people take photographs are to immortalize a moment, to make it last forever, it serves as a proof that this moment did exist or that “this person did this thing”. This applies to bureaucratic forms of society, such as id pictures or pictures that serve a evidence of crimes or events that are trying to be proven, like a world record or things of that nature.
To serve as proof
To preserve time
One of the other points the chapter makes is the addiction that we as a society have now over taking pictures. For example as tourists we are constantly taking pictures because we don’t seem to know what else to do to exist ina. new moment or experience, but also it proves that we were there at one point in time. Just like family pictures and extended family albums they serve to preserve our history, but at the same time they kind of push us away from actually socializing with these distant relatives and eventually the picture is the only connection that remains of them.
Proof of Travel
To get some sort of reaction
One of the interesting points for me was the weird taboo-ness that was a part of photography according to the author. The idea that the act of taking a photograph particularly of people can be something sexual, or perverse, or vulnerable is something that I never really thought of. But the more I thought of it the more that it made some sense, specifically where she said, the act of capturing a subject in a way that they can never see themselves, to me that stuck with me a lot because at least for myself as a person who mostly take portrait photography; I think what draws me to it is the fact that when I take a picture of a person and then I go back and try to edit it, I try to reflect the energy that I was experiencing during the shoot, and the fact that when me and the person look back at the photograph the two of us are going to remember the conversations that were being taken place as we were taking the pictures. Even though most people will only see the picture at face value there is a level of intimacy between the photographer and the subject, that the picture serves as the connection and reminder of.
Some sort of intimacy
