"Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal art of consciousness in its acquisitive mood."1 There is so much here that I disagree with. Photographs are a poor substitute for experience, much like masturbation is a poor substitute for sex. I do not take photographs to acquire experience. If anything, I take photographs as a way of understanding my experience. In this way, the act of photographing for me is far more inquisitive than it is acquisitive—far more reflective than certain.
"I remember the first day I went out on the streets with a camera... It was the connection with people that astounded me. I saw that my camera gave me a connection with others that I had never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there, but that was never explored before. On that day, I realized that the world was open to me."2 This rings so much truer to me. I do not take photographs to acquire the world, to acquire experience, as Sontag suggests, rather I take photographs to be a part of the world.