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Summary Of Barriers To Seeing By Freeman Patterson

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In Freeman Patterson’s Barriers to Seeing, Patterson mentions a quote from Susan Sontag about cameras and experiences. Sontag writes, “‘A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a way of refusing it – by limiting the experience to a search for the photogenic, by converting into an image, a souvenir’” (Paragraph 12). Essentially, Sontag is elaborating how people are distracted from their surroundings and experiences to find a photogenic picture or to record what they think to be an experience. While the objective of photography is usually to capture an experience or feeling, many are instead obsessed with finding good lighting, searching for a good background, and are focused on taking the best picture to post on social media. In many cases this is very true, and I myself can see it in people’s photos as well as my own. In Freeman Patterson’s Barriers to Seeing,” he quotes Susan Sontag’s statement that one’s camera can be a barrier to seeing and experiencing a moment. Through other’s picture taking as well …show more content…

While the picture itself may be very nice to look at, and it may be sharp and have nice colors and lighting, it typically lacks depth, emotion, and feeling. Many of us forget to look for that when taking pictures. Especially in a world where social media is a habit and cameras are in our pockets, we take pictures for others to see, and we take photos for proof – proof that we were somewhere, proof that we did something. Due to that, we forget about what we are actually doing. We forget about the experiences we should be taking pictures of, and we lose the feelings that we should capture. With our cameras in hand, our objectives are changed. Rather than having the intent to have enjoyable experiences, then taking pictures of it, we have the intent to take pictures, with the experience being a

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