Gazing Direction
A Tool for Message and Composition
There are only a few ways to deal with the gazing direction in photography.
Directly looking into the camera, towards the viewer;
Looking away from the camera/viewer; or
A combination of both.
How you arrange these and your creative choices with gazing direction can make a good photograph great.
The Eyes
We are hard-wired as humans to look into each other’s eyes.
We look into the eyes of the ones we love and hope we see love in return.
We avert our eyes from horrible things, or, perhaps just as often, we can’t avert our eyes.
As children, we looked down when we were ashamed and we looked up in wonder.
As photographers, we are taught to get the eyes in focus.
A person’s gazing direction indicates what they are looking at, and from that we try to infer what the person is thinking about.
Have you ever noticed someone looking up and you follow their gaze to see what they are looking at? Sure you have. These kinds of things are part of daily life. Why? Because eye contact is an important form of communication and it provides social cues.
Gazing Direction and Meaning
A few months ago I was out with my friend Chris for a morning of photography in Raleigh. He let me take his portrait. He’s a willing subject and a good one, unlike me.
I asked him to turn his camera and his gaze directly into my camera and to hold the shutter release cable as if taking a photograph of me. Chris’ gaze shows confidence and direct connection with the viewer. In a sense, he is inviting you into his photographic process. In a sense he is taking the viewer’s photograph.
A direct gaze into the camera, such as Chris’, usually implies participation in the photographic process. It can be the difference between street photography and a street portrait.
Much of the power of Diane Arbus’ most famous work comes from the gazing direction of her subjects. Often that gaze is very powerful and unabashedly straight into the camera.
Her work does not always have that feature. Remember the photograph of the giant and his parents in their Brooklyn apartment? Or this lovely photograph she took of Susan Sontag and her son on a bench in Central Park:
Their eyes and the connection they reveal give meaning to the image.
So what about when at least one person is looking into the camera and others are looking away? Many of Bruce Gelden’s street photos feature this.
Here’s an example by Anton Corbijn from the cover of U2’s Joshua Tree album:
I wonder if Bono ever found what he was looking for? The combination of gazing direction distinguishes Bono from the rest of the band. Some hierarchy may be implied and we can guess about that.
Gazing Direction and Composition
Gazing direction is an important compositional tool for a simple reason: gazing directions imply lines and angles. Look at this photograph from my recent trip to New York City:
I have taken many panoramic photographs, and balance is always an issue. In this photograph (taken with a Hasselblad XPAN) each person has a different gazing direction but the gaze of the center subject to the left balances the image. She is looking into the negative space on the left.
Note how the gazing directions of the other people add interest to the photo and implies angles and spacial relationships. If this were a 1.5 ratio (35mm frame) and cropped to the three people, the female subject would be looking into an unknown space outside of the frame, while the two on the right have their gazing direction contained in the frame. If she had been in profile facing to the right, I don’t think this photo would have worked as a panoramic.
Annie Leibovitz’s spin on The Last Supper exemplifies the power of the human gaze and its impact on composition. In group photographs, gazing directions build connections and meaning.
In this, as in the original painting, there is no gaze directed at the viewer. Note how gazing directions create groups within the photograph.
Gazing direction is a huge part of Gregory Crewdson’s work. He always uses gazing direction to add meaning, but here is an example where he uses it as a compositional tool:
This is a carefully composed image. All of his images are. The concrete planters were brought in for the photograph and the model was seated on one of them. The model’s gazing direction is very intentional. I drew a line to show it.
Her gazing direction follows no other line or angle in the image and is parallel to the sinister diagonal (which is a line from the bottom left corner to the top right corner). The model’s gaze direction raises many questions for the viewer and creates a sense of unease. It adds a clear compositional element with the implied line as a counterpoint to other lines of the photograph.
Lastly, gazing direction can be implied from non-human elements in a photograph. Here’s an example:
The bicycle has a direction and it parallels the sinister diagonal and the crosswalk lines. I have no idea where the rider was looking, but the movement of the bicycle and other lines in the photograph imply the direction.
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Behind the Film Camera! See you next time!
Thank you for posting this Scott. It was very educational and inspirational. I hadn’t seriously thought about using the gazes of the subjects for composition and storytelling. When I try and it’s usually people looking away from the camera in random directions, it comes across as contrived and uninteresting. You article was very helpful in pointing out the small details, direction of each subject, negative spaces, edges etc.