POJECT GAZE AND CONTROL

Exercise 4.2

Read the article ‘The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic’ by Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins. Core resources: NationalGeographic_gaze.pdf

In what ways does the idea of the gaze apply to your photography? What are the implications of this for your practice? Write a short reflective commentary in your learning log. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:84)

Notes on reading:

This is a academic paper that analyses the way that they gaze appears in the images of the National Geographic magazine, where the captured view of another is also a place where many gazes intersect, and the significance of them. The authors identify seven types of gaze:

1. The photographer’s gaze: represented by the camera’s eye and structures the image. There may be an alienation of the photographer from the subjects and an insecurity which the photographer overcomes by putting the camera between themselves. The photographer and the viewers gaze may overlap.
2. The magazine gaze (institutionalised, cropped). The gaze chosen for emphasis and use which is directed by the commissions, editing choices, cropping, manipulation, presentation and captioning.
3. The reader’s gaze: the reader’s interpretation. The reader’s gaze is affected by their experience and imagination, cultures, the form and the context of the reading (browsing or detailed reading).
4. The non-western subject gaze: confrontational/distanced look/off centre look/ absent gaze. The direct look could acknowledge the camera, be aggressive, assent to the photographing, indicate intimacy and communication. The non westerner gazing at something within the frame or into the distance or where there is no visible gaze are also explored.   
5. Explicit western looking– often framed with locals. It used to give an authenticity to an image but seems to occur less than in the past as westerners withdraw more to behind the camera.
6. Returned or refracted gaze. In National geographic images this would usually be with mirrors or cameras which are described as tools of self-reflection and surveillance.
7. Academic gaze which is a subtype of the reader’s gaze.

Reflections

The gaze is explored here through the example of the National Geographic and is reflected on by anthropologists who are particularly interested in the way people behave, especially how the westerner perceives the non-westerner.

I have long been interested in the photographic gaze, but had not realised how many types of them there actually were nor that “The multiplicity of looks in and around any photo is at the root of its ambiguity” (Lutz and Collins, 1991:146). I’d not thought either about the effect of these gaze relationships on power within a photograph. I was interested in the author’s footnote 6 where they point out that some contemporary photographers are experimenting with the conventions of point of view and framing, which invite viewers to interpret them rather than accepting the photographers gaze as their own – this is as I thought.

With regards to my own photography, I can first reflect on how I have used some of these gaze relationships and typologies in my Documentary assignments so far.

In assignment one where I represented my home in lockdown ”Provisioning and Protecting” as a viewer peering I from outside I assigned the camera and viewpoint of the photographer’s, a magazine’s and a reader’s gaze. The photographer’s gaze defined the viewpoint and content, whilst my editing and presentation was as a magazine’s institutionalised control over the output, however the reader’s personal gaze allows some room for their interpretation. My assignment two “Economic scarring”, I offered the same gazes, though with the artists statement and the “hash tags” of scarring I think I reduced the element of the readers gaze.

Assignment three “Breathe In Breath Out” offers more variety of gazes. The approach was voyeuristic and involved surveillance and involved human subjects; so it incorporated the gaze of subjects, though all western, unlike the National Geographic work. The presence of viewers certainly affected my photographer’s gaze in fact I feel that I lost some control/power to the subjects as I adjusted my perspectives around them. I also had to employ a stronger Magazine gaze to produce what I wanted to and allow for the subject’s influence on my viewing and capturing. This assignment may have a slightly anthropological approach but my photographer’s and academic eye is present so it is definitely not unbiased work.

In this assignment as in much of my work I am certainly aware of the issue of voyeurism and surveillance; however I will now be even more aware of the power play within the various types of gazes and am even more alert to the ethics of image capturing furtively. So there are different approaches in different projects but I will be more aware going forward of the interplay and relationships of the various gazes and their potential effect on the viewer, and the ambiguity in the work in particular.

References:

Lutz, C and Collins, J. (1991) the photograph as an intersection of gazes: the example of the National Geographic. Available at: https://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/nationalgeographicgaze (accessed 1st January 2020).

Open College of the Arts (2014) Photography 2: Documentary-Fact and Fiction (Course Manual). Barnsley: Open College of the Arts.

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