From the instantaneous light to the subjective gaze
A lot of things happen in the marvellous language of Image through which we can understand or even experience the pictorial world that the Image describes. But this world seems, in a way, inaccessible, impenetrable, as if it stands there only for us to observe. Or maybe not?
Technology promises in action that the distance between us and the world of Image can be decreased. Devices of augmented or virtual reality increasingly change the way we perceive Image, turning the simple observation to a kinaesthetic interaction. And of course, a future where other senses, besides vision and hearing, will participate in our interaction with Image, is possibly very close.
Though, the attempt to approach even more the pictorial world is nothing new.
Starting from the impressionists and the concept of the Reflective Dimension that they introduced in Painting, artists and theoreticians embarked on trying to lessen the distance between the pictorial world and the viewer. The new forms and subject matters that these artists attempted to investigate, changed the way older visual qualities -that in the past remained in an inactive state- functioned.
A typical example of the shifting of a common -in history of Painting- visual quality, in something new, is the extra diegetic gaze, which is defined as the gaze of a character inside the picture that observes something outside the frame.
This type of gaze, especially if it’s aligned with the viewer’s eyes, became, in the artworks of impressionists and their unique way of depiction of Reality, a new, very efficient tool of interaction with the audience, an opening of pictorial world to the viewer. Off course, the extra diegetic gaze was a visual quality for centuries. But it’s combination along with the impressionistic way of depiction and also the ordinary and everyday themes change the function of this kind of pictorial gaze.
Something similar happened in Cinema after the invention of the Subjective Shot (or point of view shot) namely the shot during which we are looking the filmic world through the eyes of a character. To put it simply, the proper use of subjective shot -as in 1947’s film “Lady in the Lake”, which was made entirely out of subjective shots- can introduce us to the filmic world and can give us the impression or the sense that somehow we are participants in the plot.
However, if the subjective shot is an invention of Cinema and the extra diegetic gaze an invention of Painting, perhaps there is something that can be credited to Photography. The innate naturalism of a photograph can include a -let’s say- certificate of authenticity of the pictorial world, but this doesn’t mean that it invites the viewer in it. As we observe a photograph, we realize the distance between us and its surface, regardless if we accept that its surface depicts something real, something that existed. This distance is dictated, for a start, from the various principles that rule the two worlds. As our world is constantly moving and changing, the photograph’s world obeys the rules of static, the absence of time or the lack of motion. What we see seems to belong somewhere else, somewhere where what we know as principles doesn’t exist. Even a possible emotional involvement with what is depicted, as we observe, for instance, a war scene or a crying child, isn’t enough to introduce us to the pictorial world, despite the fact that many of us might be moved or forced to react emotionally. The distance that separates us from the photograph remains clear and discrete.
By studying the evolution of the photographic image, technically and phenomenologically, perhaps we can identify clues indicating that the distance between the two worlds (the viewer’s and the pictorial) is relevant. The use of a clearly photographic device that accompanies and cooperates with the modern camera has increased. The flash.* During the 80’s the flash embodied in low cost cameras and conquers the markets. Nowadays it can be found in almost any smartphone. The portable, momentary lighting is now considered obvious. Meanwhile, comparison photographers, professionals, artists or amateurs that in the past used to consider flash as a strictly professional tool or a last-minute solution when the lighting circumstances demanded it, started to use it in several and extremely creative ways. A typical example is the use of flash in the post-modern fashion and glamour iconography after the 80’s. From a necessary tool for technical perfection and idealism of glamorous top models, flash turned into a more direct* visual quality that mimics the immediacy of the natural feeling of a simple recollective photograph. The hard, flat and direct light replace the sophisticated lightings of the 80’s like a note of the ideological distancing between the post-modern form from its previous idealistic version. But in the genre of Direct and Documentary Photography as well, whose devotees supported the direct and candid depiction of the world as it is, the cases where the flash turned from an unnecessary tool to a stylistic visual quality increased changing the basic principles of the genre. The creative use of flash in Direct and Street photography of the 90’ conflicts with the belief of a direct and candid depicting of the world as it is since it causes the abrupt intervention of the photographer in the events’ image.
But it also does something else that seems to affect the subjectivity of the photographer’s view.
What happens when we observe a photograph dominated by flash?
For a start, the main light sources within the picture are abolished or, at best, are turned into assisting visual qualities that render spaces and surfaces. The world revealed by the camera is illuminated not by the sun or the moon, not by a street lamp or the lights of a passing-by car, but by a mysterious off-stage light source that comes to emphasize on a vertical axis those that are seen by the camera. This off-stage light reveals new surfaces, details and areas, as elements of a world that did not exist until the camera aims at it and forces its own regime, its own treaty.
Perhaps we can speak about a certain treaty in Photography, similar to cinema’s subjective shot, since the existence of acquired illuminated conditions, that their axis matches the axis of the camera’s position, can convey the feeling that the camera -and as a result, the photographer’s eyes- is the one that observes the world, at the same time illuminating it under its own regime.
Consider an image inside a dark cave with a circular illuminated area at its centre that allows us to distinguish fairly enough the surfaces and details of the space around. The feeling that the space is illuminated by the flashlight belonging to someone that entered the cave cannot be doubted easily because we already accept that an artificial light in a dark room indicates the presence of a human being. Something similar may happen with the use of flash, resulting in strengthening the presence of the camera or, in a wider interpretation, in strengthening the existence of the being behind the camera that illuminates and observes the world. In this second interpretation, and now speaking in terms of the Gaze theory, the look of the camera indicates a presence and this presence could be indicates ours as viewers.
* The reference is about the flash that accompanies the camera. The use of one or more flashlights under studio conditions or simulation of external illuminating conditions is a different issue.
* Typical examples are the German photographer Juergen Teller or the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.
