"To collect photographs is to collect the world." - Sontag pg.1
Susan Sontag's "On Photgraphy" has a chapter called "In Plato's Cave" which describes implicit and explicit things within concept of photography.
Commonly in society images are shown to us through various means. So much so that we interpret a lot of things through imagery, whether literal, mental, philosophical and more. Bilboards, posters, screens, print, and even imagination. It is all around us that it powers most people's imagination and way of thinking. Reality is interpreted through the records and expositions given by images. To take a photograph is to both be present and absent. You capture the moment which is active, but unless you're in it via selfie or reflection, you also appear absent from the scene as you are not in frame and pause the action you may be in to capture it. It is common practice to take photos and create an intentional or unintentional memoriabilia gallery. It takes record of families, trips, everyday life, activities, celebrations, sorrows.
"Memorializing the achievements of individuals considered as members of families (as well as of other groups) is the earliest popular use of photography." - Sontag pg5
Through photographs we safeguard, interpret, admire, judge, enforce, feel, aggrivate, propagate, remember, inspire, act, stay idle, capture...