By collecting photographs, we collect the world. When we photograph, we appropriate what we photograph. For we place ourselves in such a relationship with the world that we get the impression that we possess knowledge – and thus power. Photographic images, more than testimonies of the world, seem to be pieces of it, miniature versions of reality that anyone can create.

Susan Sontag discusses the power of photographs, the relationship between the photographer and the subject, the blurry boundaries between facts and their recreated images, and the desires that drive us to document our lives.

“The most original and illuminating study” (The New Yorker) on photography. “A brilliant analysis of the great changes that photographs have brought about in the way we see the world and ourselves” (The Washington Post).