The week I read the Lutz and Collins article I was also investigated a workplace complaint regarding professional conduct. I had read the interviews of 4 young women regarding the "inappropriate" behavior of a male co-worker towards them and a common theme was the "look" he gave them. The article also reflected on types of looks or gazes. The article enumerates 7 types of gazes based on their context. Although not a photograph, the women in my workplace scenario were echoing the same discomfort in being the object of a co-workers gaze. Feminist theory was applied in the article and I heard it my current example. Power is attributed to the spectator or observer over the person or thing observed. The observing is the active and characterized as more masculine, than the passivity associated with being observed.
I wondered how the action of photographic gazing passed between an attraction to beauty, a documentary purpose and surveillance, as the authors gave these intention as an example. How does the action of the looking translate when it's thru a camera lens? Is the impact different than face to face? I wondered in the films that we've screened did any of the observed feel invaded, violated, uncomfortable, purely due to the gazing that occurs in field work or filming. There is no question for me both after reading the article and my experience at work that the "gaze" is much more powerful than imagined. Westerner or non-Westerner seems to be transcended when it comes to agreeing that a look is more than a look.
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