ABSTRACT
The specific activity of taking and looking at photographs then belongs to this potential field of the scopic drive. The photographic look, directed outward toward the object is recognized in the drive as an image of enjoyment, simultaneous with the moment of its imminent ingestion and incorporation within the body. The photograph enables the subject to situate the object of desire within the scopic drive. The photographic process, then, can operate as a kind of acquisition of the things photographed, a visible/invisible reward process. For a long time the popular image of the photographer in media culture, has been of an aggressive or “obsessive” male type, or even as a pervert or fetishist. Looking at images could also, it has been argued, offer a kind of primary pleasure in its own right, through the very structure of the photographic image.
