Abstract

Using an image taken by Reuters' photographer Nicky Loh during the 2009 earthquake in Sumatra, this article rethinks in positive terms the experience of being captivated by photographs, including `disaster' photographs that are often described as problematically spectacularizing. In order to do this I bring together two propositions, that of the photograph as a uniquely articulated prosthetic stare on the one hand, and as an inorganic but powerful `agent' or `actor' on the other. My main theoretical resources come from Donna Haraway's well-known 1988 essay `Situated knowledges' and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's 1961 essay `Eye and mind'