Posted by Freelancer: 
When did this "Not looking at the camera" thing get started? I've never understood or liked it. It looks like a missfire that the photographer neglected to discard.

You're kidding, right?

Pick up any issue of any magazine on the shelf. I guarantee you will see people looking AND not-looking at the camera in every advertisement, centerfold, and editorial in existence.

As for when it "got started" go look at back issues of magazines as far as you want. The 1950s. Earlier. The famous skirt shot of Marilyn Monore - not looking at the camera.



Go look at paintings from 1762 in your local art museum. Are people always looking at the "camera" in any of that?

New trend? Um. No.

Posted by Freelancer: 
When did this "Not looking at the camera" thing get started? I've never understood or liked it. It looks like a missfire that the photographer neglected to discard.

In my artistic work I rarely have a model look into the camera... I don't want her to establish that "personal" connection... when it's more casual, or personal than it's very appropriate for her to establish eye contact.

Just differences in style, that's all.

Posted by Freelancer: 
When did this "Not looking at the camera" thing get started? I've never understood or liked it. It looks like a missfire that the photographer neglected to discard.

You need to study the difference between a personal and impersonal shot.  In a personal shot (one with eye contact) there is a strong relationship between the viewer of the image and the subject of the image, while in an impersonal shot no such relationship is established.  The impersonal shot is used a lot in editorial fashion and also in art photography.

Posted by Star: 
Well for fetish, looking straight at the camera generally means your a dom, looking down or away or out of the corner of your eye is a more submissive look and therefor more erotic

Interesting...I must be a submissive, hmmm not surprised.
Well generally I look away from the camera in "artistic" photos that are about the form or the lighting and not meant to be about my feelings.

Posted by Freelancer: 
When did this "Not looking at the camera" thing get started? I've never understood or liked it. It looks like a missfire that the photographer neglected to discard.

Sometimes saying you don't like something just makes you look silly.

Posted by Freelancer: 
I'd have to say if you have a photo of a nude not looking into the camera, it's like voyeurism & has a certain stalking feel to it.

Perhaps you can talk to someone about this...

Posted by Freelancer: 
As far as my lighting is concerned. Any time I tried to do something different & more interesting with it in photography school & later I got comments from my instructor & a well established local photographer like "Insufficient lighting" ,"Get rid of the shadows", "Shadows are too harsh" etc...

Aaaaahh.... The "institution of art" syndrome.

I took a couple classes on photography at one of the local art schools where I lived in '94, and ran into similar weirdnesses. One of my instructiors, whom I well remember, was a big proponent of some theoretical methodology of composition. If a photograph didn't follow the rules of good composition, it was a bad photograph, no matter what. I used to mess with this instructor by deliberately cribbing compositions from great photos, having him rip my composition as "out of balance" or "ineffective" and then I'd lay down a nice copy of a famous Man Ray, Irving Penn, or H C-B photo. It was fun to watch his head explode when one set of preconceptions ("it it's a Man Ray it must be great") slammed head-on into another ("it must be composed in thirds").  SkkkREEEEEEEEBLAMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

Maybe there are lots of things other people don't like about your lighting that made your attempts at "different and interesting" unsatisfying to other viewers. The question is: did you like it?

It's important to learn what others think, and use their thoughts (and the experiences of those who have gone before) as a learning tool. After all, it's not cost-effective to re-invent the history of photography with each and every photographer who comes along. That's what we (for example) cribbed the whole notion and many paradigms of portraiture from the painters who went before us. What photographer would not be happy to be able to achieve Vermeer's lighting and composition if they could? But once you've studied a few Vermeers and maybe even tried to create something like it in-camera or in-photoshop, then you can sit back and ask yourself the important questions:
Is it what I like?
Is it what sells? (If you need to make a living)
Do I care?
What have I learned from this?

I spent about 6 years taking B&W darkroom, photography, etc, at Maryland Institute college of Art in Baltimore. It was a nice place and I learned a lot. What I learned, mostly, was the 4 questions above. I learned Zone System. I learned composition. I learned alternative processes. I learned that sharing an enlarger with someone else sucks. I learned all kinds of stuff. After I learned all that stuff it took me years to empty my head again - and I found myself left with all the stuff that I wanted, and that worked for me. What a wonderful thing!

I will say, the Zone System did the most damage. It took me years to re-learn exposure after that.

Walk your own path,
mjr.

Posted by Freelancer: 
I'd have to say if you have a photo of a nude not looking into the camera, it's like voyeurism & has a certain stalking feel to it.

NOW you're getting it...!

Posted by Venus: 
Looking at the camera means it's more glamour then not looking at the camera.  I like to look away from the camera a lot because it shows my features better.   

Since Venus posted this one first, I'm going to feel at liberty to comment...

I've shot with Venus a couple of times. She's stunning in that particular way that some asian women are - her cheekbones and her eyes look super cool and she has a delicate little mouth. But, because she's got narrow eyes and high cheekbones she looks a whole lot more striking if you have her raise her chin and look at you slightly sideways. It's just the way she's built.

Whenever I run into a photographer (or a photography teacher) trying to make a "rule" out of something, I get very nervous. Why? Because, like all art, photography is a personal expression and that automatically makes it hard to apply general rules accurately. In fact, if you did write the:
Rules of Photography
they'd be full of "unless" "but" "or" "if" "except when" and they'd be meaningless.

Venus photographs great with her eyes away from the camera and her chin tilted to the side. Kate (who I used to shoot) looked great with her chin down so you could see her fantastic mouth and eyes. Amy (in Las Vegas) had such stunning blue eyes that you need to point the camera straight at them... In fact you can't see anything else when she looks at you. Etc. and so it goes.

Every subject has different "rules" for what work best for that subject.  If you want to get the "right look" here's a suggestion: explain to the model that you need to stare at them for a minute, and just walk around them a couple times looking at them from all different angles. It's OK to stare! That's what you're there for, after all! And keep looking at the model and asking yourself what looks best to you, in that light, at that moment. Or if you're lazy, sit in your chair and ask the model to spin. They might crack a smile, too, and then you may go "WOW! that smile sure does the deal for me!" Photograph the model the way they look best. They're all different. Otherwise, the world would only need one model. (who'd be very busy and very rich)

OK, I lied. There's one rule in photography:
1) First take off the lens cap

mjr.

Posted by Freelancer: 
Go look at paintings from 1762 in your local art museum. Are people always looking at the "camera" in any of that?

New trend? Um. No." I never said I thought it was a new trend. lol

No, they're not.

Once upon a time in portraiture, it was considered a sign of immodesty for a woman to be looking directly out at you from a painting (looking at the camera).

I prefer more editorial feeling, naturalistic shots in which I'm not looking at the camera, but, obviously, I have a mix of both. It depends on what you're trying to convey.

Posted by Freelancer: 
When did this "Not looking at the camera" thing get started? I've never understood or liked it. It looks like a missfire that the photographer neglected to discard.

Nothing wrong with looking or not looking ... it's all a matter of style and taste.  So you may not like it, but many do like either way.