Susan Sontag, Sulla fotografia, 2024

Faced with the proliferation and overflow of photography, the omnipresence of images, and the influx of messages—stimulus, persuasion, sometimes even oppression—phenomena that all urgently demand our attention, there is no shortage of those who have reflected on the problems all this raises, on the shocks and habits that arise from these interactions. And they have done so using a wide variety of approaches, technical and sociological, aesthetic, and even moral.
The essays Sontag devoted to this theme hold a special place, because all the motifs, suggestions, problems, and relationships are not only rethought and re-examined with a highly attentive and insightful eye, but also verified by continually broadening the discourse to the entire cultural and political situation, happily unprejudiced, identifying a network of meanings in the evolution of photography that shed new and diverse light on the phenomenon and allow for a stimulating and comprehensive recapitulation.