Creating Conscious Looking

Seeing is a part of our everyday life that determines our thoughts, actions, and feelings.  We become so focused on what we see that we forget how we see is an equally important part of our perception of the world around us.  The power of looking becomes an imperative aspect in how we read ourselves and the people around us.  My images attempt to evoke a consciousness in looking through the manipulation of the gaze.  By creating different forms of seeing, that the viewer will recognize, as well as establishing these forms of looking and personally experiencing them, the photographs produced force its audience to recognize the relevance of looking and how connected we are to the visuality of what surrounds us.

            One of the first images created in the Untitled Series was of a girl sitting on a table with her back towards the camera.  She is framed in from both sides, by two windows that are expelling excess light from half open blinds.  As she sits facing the wall, she shakes her head, click; she is captured with her hands resting on the table and her hair flowing wildly but frozen in mid-air.  The second photograph is quite similar, except for the direction of her face.  She seems to have stopped and turned, to face us.  These two photographs encapsulate different gazes that force the audience to distinguish between the conscious and the unconscious looking.  The viewer is quickly transformed from the status of a common spectator to that of a trespasser, all with a simple change in the position of the sitter.  When she looks elsewhere she can’t know she is being watched allows the viewer to see her without feeling uncomfortable.  However when she looks into the camera that immediately changes.  Her gaze transforms into a direct look, the spectator becomes aware of looking because his eyes have been met by the object in which he gazes upon.  It is at this moment that the spectator realizes his transgression.  It is this simple change of gazes; the transformation from a camera, to a spectator, and finally to that of the voyeur which are all controlled by how the sitter of the photographs sees, that becomes a true example of the power of looking.

            The original intention of this series was to experience the photo shoot in different roles, not just as the photographer that gazes, but as the object that is gazed upon. As I unrobed for the shoot I quickly found myself being abnormally self-aware, this uncomfort was not only created because of the knowledge that I was being watched, but because of the fact that I was nude.  It was this consciousness of the self did allow for the outcome of a variety of photographs.  At times I would forget the camera, others I would look straight into it; however I mostly shied away from it or averted my eyes.  The knowledge of the spectator, even the spectator as me, created an unexpected awkwardness that I had not planned.  I realized that as I adopted each role, either the sitter or the photographer, the “other” role would become a detached presence.  It was this detachment that allowed for a closer analysis of the gaze.   When I became the sitter I realized my control only when I acknowledged the camera, the other instances where I avoided or averted its gaze I recognized that I merely became the object being gazed upon.  The absence of communication between the sitter and the camera was the needed compliment for the establishment of the voyeur.  The images that displayed my awkwardness, the averted glances, or the ignoring of the camera were images that gave immense power to the audience.  These photographs give the viewer the capacity to become an invisible watcher. 

            My Untitled Series strives to transform the audience into a voyeur by directing and manipulating their gaze.  Within these photographs nudity also helps to enhance a viewer’s realization that what they see may not be meant for their eyes.  It is this combination, the variety of gazes and the naked body which help push the viewer into the role of the peeping tom, and eventually the consciousness of their looking by making them a transgressor.  The voyeur has always been seen as the “other,” a stranger, a trespasser.  Voyeurism often attributes a sense of control by becoming invisible and watching.  The photographs in the series contain various images that give the viewer this power.  Many photographs contain my naked body in personal and awkward stances, in certain photographs the camera/viewer is ignored, and I am unaware of the lens.  These images are the roots to a voyeur’s power.  They are able to see into someone’s secret world without being detected.  Other photographs within the series challenge the viewer; they contain images of me looking back into the camera, back into the viewer’s eyes.  It is at this moment when there is a role reversal.  The knowledge and confrontation of me being watched takes the control away from the viewer.  The audience becomes aware of their unwanted presence.  They become conscious of their looking because they realize that they have been caught looking at a stranger.  There is an exchange of glances.

            This series contains tension, the invitation to look by the display of the images that show myself unaware of the viewer, and then when I look back the realization that the viewer is a trespasser.  This struggle between looking and not looking that is created by the manipulation of the gaze is what forces the viewer to become conscious of their looking.  By realizing the importance of what and how a person sees we are able to dissect our surroundings and recognize the relevance of looking to our everyday world.