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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. Who helped to lead the largest collective photographic project ever in the United States?

2. The project with the FSA was enormously influential in depicting to America the __________ face of man and his struggles.

3. A photograph can only convey ____________of something, but gives no real information about the subject.

4. The art of taking documentary photographs instead of helping a situation is a tacit ____________ that whatever is going on should keep on happening.

5. The prisoners in the cave see only shadows, and thus believe those shadows are the totality of ____________.

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How was "Family of Man" an opposite representation of what Whitman was trying to saw about humanity?

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

4. What does Susan Sontag suggest that photography has made society do in relation to reality?

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

6. What are the two groups into which photographers can be categorized, according to the text in this chapter?

7. What did Edward Steichen photograph in order to show that objects aren't always as simple as they appear?

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

9. How does surrealism look at wealth, which is the same way that photography seems to look at wealth?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sontag also points out that some photographers are moralists, trying to identify a world vision.

Part 1: How do you think photographers are moralists? How does this label work?

Part 2: Why is it important to identify a world vision? Or isn't it?

Part 3: Is photography necessary in order to understand morality? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Photography brings up a lot of emotions and reactions from those who take photos and from those who look at photographs.

Part 1: Why do you think photography creates such intense reactions in those who view it?

Part 2: Why do you think Sontag is so passionate about photography and spreading knowledge about it?

Part 3: How do you think photography hold so much power over those who view it and those who take pictures?

Essay Topic 3

In Plato's cave, the prisoners are only able to see the shadows of what is real, not the actual objects.

Part 1: Why do you think Sontag used this image to begin a discussion of photography?

Part 2: How would life be different if you could only see shadows?

Part 3: Do you think you'd like a world in which all you saw were the shadows? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 665 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample