One of the fundamental elements in a visual composition is the treatment of the gaze. What seems trivial, in reality, is something fundamental and that will shape our photographs and therefore the entire interpretive exercise. The author Jacques Lacan had a special impact on this element (based on the works of Sigmund Freud) from the dimension of psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He spoke to us about scopic drive, that is, a kind of state of tension between looking, observing and being observed. The scopic drive is the need for every human being to observe, look and scrutinize visually and also the need to be observed. In the end translates into a game of desire, where the focus of our gaze alters the whole world we are building, but it is not only about perspective and the way the photographer or directly our camera takes or observes the images, but also about how the characters and objects are they find within our visual universe, they use and employ their own gaze. How all the elements are related through the gaze and what kind of implications and significant burdens this carries.
To explain all this in greater depth and in more practical terms, we will deal with one of the most important rules in the world of the image. The gaze rule. A series of general indications that will help us to give our images concordance, harmony and that will help us to have a greater awareness and control of our tools as creators. Throughout your career, you will discover that all those elements that may have been overlooked or even those that you considered expendable or inconsequential, have an enormous importance in the development of artistic and professional work.
Before we start, I would like to add and clarify something. Although we are talking about a norm and we refer to this content as a rule, keep in mind that there may be certain exceptions and of course we should never allow a rule or a theoretical postulate to limit us, because in reality, on some occasions we can (and in many others we must) move away from academicism. Ideally, we should try to find different sources of wealth and then use them based on our style and our needs. This type of source may come from the purest theory or from our own practice.
The rule of the gaze: A transfer of charges and meanings in photographic language
What exactly does this rule consist of? It is about giving importance and prominence to the act of observation of our character. If, for example, we photograph a young man in profile, we must give more space in our frame to the front of the subject than to the rear, that is, to give greater prominence and space to the direction of the gaze. In this way, what we are going to do is give more prominence to the act of observation of our protagonist and a greater expressive charge.
But this goes way beyond the physical act of looking, and this is where it all becomes really interesting. We can suggest certain things by creating physical inconsistencies in our construction and in this way we can dupe and involve our audience at a higher and perhaps more refined level.
Wait a minute ... What do we mean by looking?
I remember that in the information science faculty, one of the most impressive and revolutionary subjects that I had the opportunity to learn about was Image Analysis. We spent weeks and weeks analyzing a visual proposal, a commercial poster, a painting, a fragment of a film of no more than thirty seconds and perhaps it is when you face these types of challenges, when you discover the magnitude and power of visual language . Spending almost an entire month analyzing a photograph can be somewhat surprising. You realize how complex the graphic construction is. One of the posters that stuck in my memory was one of the most controversial by Dolce & Gabbana. It featured a group of men around a woman. One of them held the young woman and seemed to control her violently. At first glance, we all knew, or thought we knew that this woman was subjected, being the victim of abuse and that these men definitely had control over her and the situation.
However, after making a formal analysis, taking into account the kinesics, proxemics and especially the gaze of those characters, it was impressive to discover that the woman was really in control of that situation. Despite the first appearance that presented itself to us was that it was subjected and under the control of that group of men, the truth is that if we focus on the game of gazes and analyze the correlation between all the characters, we reach the conclusion of that she is definitely the one in control and in a way they are rather submissive characters.
By this I mean that the act of looking does not always have to be supported by formal, visual, explicit and clear issues. The act of looking can be totally psychological. Our character may be looking at one place, but really, emotionally, he is looking at another place. Maybe our character is hiding something from us that our photographer reveals to us. Why not? I propose a more graphic example and with which I am sure you will understand it better. Here we have two very similar images. In the first, the protagonist runs looking forward. The photographer creates a connection that agrees with the graphic construction, respects the norm of the gaze. We know this because it leaves more space at the front of the subject than at the back, it gives prominence and importance to the gaze. Our character is clear, sincere and we pay attention to his act of observation. However, on the second occasion we find two children, running, only in this case the space behind them is given greater prominence than the space where their gazes are directed. We know thanks to this construction that these characters do not really look forward. They are somehow looking back at that void that they leave behind. We then find shades of melancholy. Those young people are abandoning something and we as spectators feel a certain emptiness.
