A soft gaze or expanding your field of vision is to allow you eyes to see more broadly. Normally when you look at the words on book your focus is very narrow and you cannot see past the pages of a book.
Imagine this or better yet go out side and see) just look at a board landscape. Focus on an object directly in front of you and notice its details. Then relax just look at the 'whole landscape' and notice how much more you can see. If you were to look at an open book held about 18 inches in front of you with this relaxed gaze you would still see the landscape past the edges of the book. You are expanding your peripheral vision. With a relaxed gaze you are seeing all however you are avoiding the details of hard focus looking.
You want to photoread with a parallel vison (an eye on each page 
) rather than regular reading vision... http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html
This link will explains what your eyes do with regular reading and follow the links at the bottom for some alternative techniques
Remember it takes a bit of practice to hold the soft gaze so go easy on yourself.
Alex
