Like the collector, the photographer is animated by a passion that, even when it appears to be for the present, is linked to a sense of the past.
Susan SontagRead
Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun. They have something to do that is like a friendly imitation of work: they can take pictures.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that photography allows work-oriented people to find solace during vacation by providing them with a purposeful activity.
Susan Sontag's quote reflects on how taking photographs while on vacation serves as a way for individuals with work-centric mindsets to mitigate feelings of guilt or anxiety from not being productive. Photography becomes a substitute for work, allowing people to engage in a creative endeavor that mimics the structure and purpose they find in their everyday jobs, providing a sense of satisfaction even in leisure.
Themes
PhotographyVacationAnxietyWorkCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about balancing work and leisure, one might quote Susan Sontag to illustrate how creative activities can relieve anxiety.
More from Susan Sontag
All quotes →Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.
Susan SontagRead
Gide and I have attained such perfect intellectual communion that I experience the appropriate labor pains for every thought he gives birth to!
Susan SontagRead
Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.
Susan SontagRead
In NY sensuality completely turns into sexuality - no objects for the senses to respond to, no beautiful river, houses, people. Awful smells of the street, and dirt... Nothing except eating, if that, and the frenzy of the bed.
Susan SontagRead
It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.
Susan SontagRead
Similar quotes
I am careful about fiction. A novel is not a tract or an essay. If I want to write about land reforms, or Hindu-Muslim relations, or position of women, I can do it as it affects my characters as in 'A Suitable Boy.' I could only write about issues specifically through essays. But I'll do that only if I have something worthwhile to say.
Vikram SethRead
My goal as a creative person is to express truth and beauty in whatever I do
Tony BennettRead
I hate being called poet/dramatist/translator/director. 'Poet' covers it all for me.
Tony HarrisonRead
When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.
Paul MccartneyRead
The second, and I think this is the much more overt and I think it is the main cause, I have been increasingly demonstrating or trying to demonstrate that every possible stance a critic, a scholar, a teacher can take towards a poem is itself inevitably and necessarily poetic.
Harold BloomRead
A good film demands its own score, and if you are a musician, your conscience will never allow you to do something mediocre for a good film.
A. R. RahmanRead