10 February 2008

Looking & Seeing

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Iris. Photo by Eric Francis

IT IS in many ways taboo to look at women. True, they tend to go out of their way to be [in their terms] acceptable and [in my terms] beautiful. After so many hours, days and years of preparation, it is perhaps polite to glance at them, not so often polite to take a very good look and if one actually notices, one had best be subtle about it. Either that, or extremely bold.

I am reminded of the Greek myth where a mortal happens into some circumstance where a goddess is present, sees her nude, and is struck blind.

One of the most exquisite pleasures of photographing women is being able to look, and to see, with her direct consent. In a sense, it is a ritual of goddess worship: a conscious act of appreciation of a female and what can truly be called the Feminine. The ritual of witnessing the feminine is as much about their being seen as it is about my granting myself, and accepting, permission to see. The healing goes in both directions, because that is where the struggle went, too.

Has it been said recently that we humans NEED to be seen? We needed to be seen and acknowledged by our parents when we were young (and most of us were not). That carries into all kinds of needs to be seen and acknowledged as adults. If we hide the more often as we grow older, it only makes stepping into the light that much more emancipating.

Humans have a special thing about seeing themselves; we seem to look, a lot, and then act like it doesn’t happen. I mean visually; psychologically, we are nearly invisible to ourselves, but a physical mirror is a symbol. There is a split: we cannot usually be known for our self-awareness, or our self-curiousity, and we tend to hide things things from ourselves and others.

A passing glance, perhaps; but rarely deep indulging. Before a physical or a psychic mirror, generally one is alone. In a sense, the act of seeing oneself is the most secret that there is.

This is the space that is opened up by the camera and the mirror, the space directly entered. It is beautiful to see a woman seeing herself, in the midst of her unmitigated narcisissm, whether selfcritical or selfloving. It is a relief; it is the feeling of the universe meeting herself, acknowledging herself intimately.

There is a word for it: Compersion, the absolute acceptance of another person’s eroticism. Or, one’s own.

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