Capturing the gaze

I was struggling to find an angle on how i would capture people’s stare. I had lots of ideas (written below) but they all required other people to be in the media process whether it was to take it for me or to be the model.

• Filming a couple staring into each others eyes in a seated position (staged)
• Photographing moments of others eye contact when in a group situation (just hanging out)
• Asking friend to photograph or film my gaze during interaction with others (when hanging out)
• Photographing myself every time i catch myself looking into my reflection
• Photographing the object of my gaze whatever I stare at for more that a set amount of time I take a photo of that object. (But what if I consciously stare at something for longer than I would because I want to take a photo of it? And how do I stay conscious every time I look at something and time how long i’m looking at it for)

I wasn’t sure if they would feel comfortable being photographed or filmed in their somewhat vulnerable or intimate eye contact moments but honestly more than anything i doubted that the gazes in the photographs or film would not be genuine especially since they are conscious about being filmed unless the camera is hidden and they don’t know they are being filmed.

Question: How do photographers or videographers capture genuine moments? Like they not staged but very real? Are they real? Is it even possible? Do the models pretend that the camera doesn’t exist? How? Don’t they get nervous? shy? When there are cameras, are the emotions of the models feel 100% pure?

When I was still stuck with how to go about with capturing the gaze, trying to find the most practical way to do it an idea struck me unexpectedly.

Unexpected opportunity

At work a small souvenir shop where i work alone, i noticed that i had a perfect opportunity to capture my gaze in an un-staged environment where there was interaction with others (the customers) and all i had to do was set up my camera so it stood steadily. Through several trial and errors to find the right spot to place the camera and right angle to make sure my face was in the frame which was hard as using the back camera on my phone, without a preview screen to check. It was almost like setting up a hidden camera on myself. Due to its large file size the actual footage could not be uploaded but the film clip below roughly shows the set up of it.

Honestly while examining the footage, the first thing i thought to myself was how fat my face looked. I have never taken a photo in that angle. I have never seen myself in that angle. It is a weird angle to take a photo at. There are good selfie angles and accidental angles where you open your camera function expecting the camera to be back facing but it’s on selfie mode and you accidentally catch a glimpse of your double chin and unattractiveness so you get shocked and quickly change it to back facing before anyone sees. In the video clip i saw that it was definitely not the most beautiful side of my face but after all I just had to admit that that’s what I look like when shot in that angle and if someone looks at me from that angle that’s how I look like to them. I realise that I only see myself from the front or from the side. Because of where my eyes are positioned it is impossible to see my face from below my chin or from any other angle than the angle that I look into the mirror at OR from the angle I use to take selfies which are always the same because there are particular angles (holding up the phone higher than my face and tilting it downwards) that I’m used to and think works the best.

Therefore I was first shocked at the newly discovered (not so appealing) side of my face but was amused at how different I looked in that angle and how unfamiliar I was with it.

Some other things I noticed in the video

• I Blink a lot when I speak but never blink when I nod (Turns out naturally I don’t blink when I nod)
• I have a pattern going on in the video. The ratio of the time I’m looking down to when I look up to check the shop or any customers is 8:2. I’m looking down most of the time while I fold the clothes or do other things but every few minutes I look up for a sec to check on the store and customers.

Subject of noticing or this time more like method of noticing – (To take media items from an) Odd angle