Week 5 – Gazing at Photographs
The nature of my own photographic gaze is that it always starts off with an element of curiosity. This is the reason why I would take the time and give an image a second glance or even spend a few seconds scanning the image. Contemplating the frame in which it has been selected for me, but also if there is anything to offer in means of a deeper narrative. Almost looking through the frame. I do this daily with adverts, adapting my own filter through the masses that I am exposed to. Firstly I may be attracted to an advert visual language of bright colours or something/someone that I have a personal interest to. My curiosity gets the better of me and I go in for a closer inspection.
In many adverts the body is represented in a stereotypical way, I guess this would make sense as the advert only has a few seconds to catch the viewer’s attention. This would mean the viewer could summarise the advert’s intentions pretty quickly and the advert would achieve what it set out to do-off load ideologies for that brand.
Advertising this way is effective, even if cultures try to evolve into a more socially inclusive one. We will still be bombarded with these types of advertising because it sells. Examples were given this week from charities campaigning for disabilities. It was quite a shock that even the charities themselves still stereotype their actors as inferior/vulnerable, that they need help, that they need your money. If the advert showed a different view, maybe of a disabled person having a normal life meaning that they needed minimal support. Would the advert achieve what they needed to do and persuade people to give money to the cause?
My own ‘look’ on documenting historic sites that once had a military presence is one of an appreciation, of the landscapes that perhaps time has forgotten. Although I am recording the area in which it stands using the indexical reading, my images are still open to interpretation of the landscape and it’s symbolic value to viewers from all different backgrounds. These past weeks I have focused mainly on approaches that could strengthen my work as more scientific or technical such as GPS, ranging rods etc solely looking at my practice as photographic survey. Whist reading the article by Bright (1985) in Exposure Vol23 (given to us through our presentations) it really got me thinking about the deeper meaning, the deeper narrative and that I must explore all avenues that photography can indeed be a record and a symbolic interpretation for human values and actions.
“Thus, whatever its aesthetic merits, every representation of the landscape is also a record of human values and actions imposed on the land over time” (Bright, 1985 of ‘Mother Nature and Marlboro Men’ in Exposure Vol 23 No1 Winter 1985)
Critical Research Journal 