Chapter 4: Representation and Interaction

This chapter addresses the relationships that exist between people and/or objects in the image, the producers of the image, and the viewers of the image.

One of the more interesting ideas brought up in this chapter is the way that societal norms are brought into images. The personal space that exists in our live interactions with other people and acts as a component in defining our relationships, closeness, formality, and comfort zones, is represented within images as well. The distance and angle of an object represented in the image can determine our emotional involvement with the object and influence or level of empathy toward it. In the set of images in page 127, this is represented through the distant, "objective" images representing the events of a murder, followed by close-up images of people who knew the victim, with captions regarding their relationship with him. These close-ups mirror a point of view that would likely occur if the viewer were actually speaking with these individuals, and their direct gaze draws the viewer into the "conversation."

This ties into the authors' discussion of direct and indirect gazes within images, and acceptable norms for "looking" or "staring" at the viewer (through the camera). In some instances, this follows the conventions of live interactions (as, in the case above, when the photographed individuals look directly at the camera (and, thereby, the viewer) to engage in dialogue. In other instances, actors within an image or film cannot look into the camera, because to do so would be to break the illusion built up that they are "unaware" of being viewed.

An interesting example of where these two conventions intersect is movie advertisements. Whereas, in most conventional films, characters interact with one another throughout an entire film without looking at the camera and acknowledging the viewer, advertisements for the same films often position the characters in such a way that they all stare directly at the viewer, beckoning them to engage in a gaze, thereby making an emotional connection with the characters (and subsequently, going to see the film).




Another interesting discussion in this chapter addresses cases when viewers, and viewers' relationships with the images, are defined by the images themselves. The viewer of a given ad can be defined by a narrator or character that addresses the viewer directly, and in so doing, gives them certain characteristics (as in advertisements, for example, where a narrator might say, "do you suffer from long-lasting headaches?"). However, this can also happen through various visual cues, whether by having the viewer emphasize with certain elements of the ad, or, for example, by clearly representing a person or group in the image as "other," forcing the viewer to visually identify with the "us"/producers of the image while viewing the image, even if they would not do so outside this context. The same principle can be applied through the choice of angles from which an image forces us to view an object or person, thereby subjecting the viewer to the image producer's relationship with the object or person, whether or not we share the same view.