With today’s session we introduce the important concept of gaze, and apply it to photography through examples that have to do with race, class and gender differences. The gaze of photography has been and still is instrumental in amplifying and making visible difference, of a kind that is never neutral but assumes a norm and puts those who differ in an unequal position of power. Many of the examples we will examine pose important ethical questions, but we will also see how the idea of consent, and in particular informed consent, represents a first step towards approaching photography as a relationship of exchange that takes place over time.
Through this session you will have a chance to learn:
• Photography is a powerful means to create difference, and historically it has been used to set aside the more powerful image-makers from the less powerful photographic subjects. These practices are still common, but photographers who tell the stories of their own communities are sometimes able to break this trend.
• The concept of gaze can be defined as a particular way of looking that embodies aspects of the relationship between observer and observed - and there are as many versions as there are relationships. We’ll mention the disciplinary gaze, the medical gaze, the male gaze, the tourist gaze.
• Consent is a legal requirement and an ethical issue - the two overlap but do not correspond. As an ethical principle, consent can help us see photography as a continued relationship in which the subject maintains rights over time.
Critique exercise for today: Select a photograph or a small series that enables you to analyse the relationship between the photographer and the subjects. What kind of relationship is that, and how do you understand it? Does it come across between the lines or is there a specific strategy put in place?
You’ll briefly present it to your breakout group during class (up to 5 mins.).
You’ll briefly present it to your breakout group during class (up to 5 mins.).
Key Reading:
• Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. 1991. “The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic.” Visual Anthropology Review 7 (1): 134–49. https://doi.org/10.1525/var.1991.7.1.134.
2.1 Othering
We discuss how photography can emphasise the separation between photographer and photographed person, in cases in which the photographer belongs to the same group as audience and the photographed persons are identified as belonging to a group that is 'other' to them. We will also see what can happen if the photographer belongs to the photographed group instead. Our two main examples will be race and class representations, respectively in the USA and the UK.
Readings:
• Chambefort-Kay, Karine. 2018. 'Martin Parr’s Signs of the Times, A Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes: antidote pictures to consumerism?’ InMedia. The French Journal of Media Studies 7.1. https://doi.org/10.4000/inmedia.1216
• Newbury, D. 1999 'Photography and the Visualisation of Working Class Lives in Britain' Visual Anthropology Review, 15: 1, 21-44.
• Remes, Outi. 2007. "Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs: Returning to Richard Billingham's “Ray's a Laugh” Series". Afterimage 34(6): 16-19. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2007.34.6.16
Extra: Gordon Parks was an amazing, multi-talented figure who is definitely worth knowing more about. Here is a link to the article by John Edwin Mason I mentioned in the video and this is a good video introduction to the relevance of Parks' work (Youtube link).
2.2 Gaze
The concept of gaze, understood as a particular way of looking that embodies aspects of the relationship between observer and observed, is fundamental to recognise relationships of power in seemingly neutral acts of representation. We look at the origins of the concept, its application in the domains of surveillance and at two specific forms of gaze: the male gaze and the tourist gaze.
Readings:
• Eileraas, Karina. 2003. “Reframing the Colonial Gaze: Photography, Ownership, and Feminist Resistance.” MLN, vol. 118, no. 4: 807–840.
• Mitchell, Timothy. 1992. "Orientalism and the Exhibitionary Order". In Colonialism and Culture, edited by Nicholas B. Dirks. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 289-317.
• Mulvey, Laura. 1975. 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', Screen, Volume 16, Issue 3, Autumn: 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6
• Sealy, Mark. 2019. "Chapter 3 Violence of the Image Part 1 Racial Time" in Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time. London: Lawrence and Wishart Limited: 106-119.
• Sekula, Allan. 1986. “The Body and the Archive”. October 39: 3-64.
• Sontag, Susan. 1977. 'America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly' Chapter 2 in On Photography . New York: Picador.
• Tagg, John. 1988. “A Means of Surveillance: Photography as Evidence in Law”. Excerpt from Chapter 3 in The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. London: Macmillan: 74-87.
Extra: What about the white gaze? What do you think this means? You can find plenty of examples in recent news, but here are a few links to get you started: How photographic film was biased towards white people. National Geographic acknowledges its history of publication was essentially racist. Black photographers visualise racism through their images for the Washington Post.
2.3 Consent
By talking about consent we start to decentre the attention from the gaze of the photographer to the relationship with the photographic subjects. We distinguish consent as a legal requirement from consent as an ethical principle, look at problematic examples and introduce the notion of informed consent.
Readings:
• Henderson, Lisa 1988. "Access and Consent in Public Photography,” in L. Gross, J. Katz and J. Ruby (eds) Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film and Television. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 91-107.
• Marion, Jonathan S. and Crowder, Jerome W. 2013. Chapter 1 ‘The Ethics of Images’ in Visual research: a concise introduction to thinking visually. London and New York: Bloomsbury: 3-12.
• Pauwels, Luc. 2008. 'Taking and Using. Ethical Issues of Photographs for Research Purposes'. Visual Communication Quarterly, 15:4, 243-257, DOI: 10.1080/15551390802415071
• Ruby, Jay. 2000. 'The ethics of imagemaking; or “They’re going to put me in the movies. They’re going to make a big star out of me”’ Chapter 5 in Picturing Culture. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press: 137-149.
Extra: The prestigious photographic agency, Magnum, has come under fire recently for the presence of images identifiable vulnerable minors in their database and for license sale. This is a write-up of the events. What do you think is the role of consent in these situations, and how to prevent cases like this one from happening again?
Some questions:
• Have you ever felt part of a process of othering, either as 'perpetrator' or as 'victim'? Was it to do with race, class, gender, or perhaps was it connected to tourism? What was the medium through which othering took place, was it language, images, performance?
• Have you ever snapped a picture of someone without their knowledge? How did that make you feel? Do you feel differently about that experience now?
Critique exercise for next time: Select a photograph or series of photographs in which you can explain how a certain technique (framing, editing, choice of light or film, juxtaposition) relates to what the photographer wanted to say. In other words, explain how a certain photographic technique was used to convey a message.
You’ll briefly present it to your breakout group during class (up to 5 mins.).
You’ll briefly present it to your breakout group during class (up to 5 mins.).