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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the profession or the career choice for Whitman during his time in the world?

2. Photography often makes the photographer incapable of _____________ - one can either document or do something else.

3. The FSA program seems to indicate that when you photograph an object, you can _____________.

4. Photographers sought to illustrate ____________in discord, or a polity among banal and trivial subjects.

5. In what year was photography invented, according to Sontag's research as outlined in this book?

Short Essay Questions

1. What has photography established, according to Sontag in this chapter in relation to how objects are seen?

2. Why did photography come to be seen as a type of copulation with the material world?

3. What was the goal of the Farm Service Administration photographic project in 1935 as described in this chapter?

4. How does photography make the photographer incapable of intervening in a situation?

5. What did Steichen thus do with his photographs in terms of creating importance with the subject of the picture?

6. How might the surrealist art movement be described, according to Sontag in this chapter?

7. Who were some of the groups of people who Diane Arbus took pictures of when she was creating portraits?

8. What did the Farm Service Administration effectively show about the power of photography?

9. What is the significance of the title of this particular chapter of this Susan Sontag book?

10. What kind of art does Sontag believe photography has become, according to the text in this chapter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Whitman strove to look beyond beauty and ugliness into the essential value of a person or object, something that photography can do as well.

Part 1: How do you define beauty in this world? Why?

Part 2: How do you define ugliness in this world? Why?

Part 3: Do you think it's possible to look beyond ugliness and beauty? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Sontag points out that some photographers are like scientists, documenting and examining the world.

Part 1: Why do you think photographers could be called scientists?

Part 2: Do you think photography is necessary in science? Why or why not?

Part 3: Why do you think it's important to document the world? Or isn't it?

Essay Topic 3

According to Sontag, painting favors beautiful items while photography favors less than attractive objects.

Part 1: Why do you think painting is used for beautiful items?

Part 2: Do you think painting can only be used for beautiful things? Why or why not?

Part 3: Do you think that photography focuses only on those things which are less attractive? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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