Display of Emotions

I awoke this morning, had been dreaming about taking photos that showed my emotions as I was experiencing them. They were not pictures of me, rather of scenes that explained what I was feeling, and conveyed my mood explicitly. So, I wandered down stairs to make a pot of coffee, and began to ponder if it was possible to actually display an emotion, in a manner that viewers understood, that a person was feeling at the moment the photo was snapped. I know emotions can be displayed in photos, but who's emotions are they? Were they the photographers, or merely what was witnessed? Do most of us simply rely on fortuitous circumstance, or do we consciously endeavor to show what is going on inside us? Is it possible to portray a scene that is an accurate depiction of what a person is feeling at any given moment? I feel sorrow, what would I photograph to get my message out, or happy, wrathful, feeling blue, etc. How, or what, could deliver the message? Were this music, I think I would not have a problem letting everyone know my mood at any given moment, but this is visual, and it isn't about looking at me, rather at what I am seeing outwardly as a means to portray my emotion. Discounting any mood or "zone" I HAVE to be in to want to make a particular photograph, or decide which camera to use(I feel like using the 4x5 today or I'm in the mood to pack my Mamiya)I'm talking about pure gut emotion and conveying that to a viewer in a manner that they see and feel what you felt at that moment (but not what the 'happened upon' scene instilled to be captured). There are many examples of depictions of others feelings, but are they the feelings of the photographer at the time and were shot to display his emotions, or just something observed and captured? Am I (or any one else)capable of creating, no matter frame of mind, and be able to show the result, and the viewer immediately understands the feelings I was experiencing that caused me to make the photo, as opposed to the feeling induced by the scene, that caused me to photograph it.

Time to put this to the test. I am going to carry a camera at all times, which I haven't done in years, to see if this is possible. Is anyone capable of seeing their emotion in a scene and capture it, or does the scene dictate the emotion first and reaction to it induces an emotion. I will do my daily routine and just live normally, and attempt to show my emotions through my photos.

Emotions in photography is hard. To show your emotion is hard, and to get emotional response from a viewer is even harder. Maybe you could write to this thread or blog regularly - so that we can see the progress ?

While painters/sculpters/etc. can create at will what you are trying to achieve (see Edvard Munch's The Scream), it appears to me that it may be difficult for a photographer to capture the scene/circumstance that exhibits the exact emotion the photographer is feeling at that particular moment. I once did an assignment (a photo essay) in the barrios in E. Los Angeles but I started with several defined objectives (emotions/feelings) I was trying to convey. I had decent success with the project but I did consume a great deal of film before I finished with a satisfactory result. I do believe you may get photographs that will indeed depict your emotion(s) at that moment but I also believe you have your work cut out for you. That said, your ambition, from my perspective, is a highly desirable goal. Go for it!

PS. You might want to find the work of Mary Ellen Mark, particularly Streets of the Lost, shot in Seattle, for inspiration. There was also an Oscar winning documentary, Streetwise, that was based on MEM's Life Magazine photo essay.

Note: I shot the essay on a Rolleiflex. I tried at first with 35 but just couldn't capture the result I desired.

Rick A,

That's a great topic. I think that the emotions felt by someone looking at a photograph are theirs. Your photograph related to them, stirring their emotions.

You may have felt the same emotions when taking the photograph, or the subject may have felt them, but I don't think you have to.

If the model is an actor, or if you plan the photograph to convey a certain emotion, then I don't think it matters whether or not you or the model actually felt the emotion... to stir the appropriate emotion in your photograph. I don't mean be deadpan - you still need to put everything you are into it - but I don't think you or the model need to feel the specific emotion you want the photograph to convey.

But that's the point Bill, I want people to see what I was feeling, and the photo in the means in which I have to convey it. People need to be able to say "he was very sad" or "what a joyful mood he must have been in" without looking at me and sensing the emotion by my presence. It need not be a photo of a person or of anything in particular, just the outward appearance of the emotion that I had at that moment, that was not caused by the image , but portrayed by the image.

I was sort of paraphrasing William Mortensen who described how models and photographers work together. He says it is a waste of time to try to get a model to "feel" something, it is more effective to get them to act. Some actors work internally by making themselves feel it, others just imagine a trip to the dentist when they want to cry.

But I prefer real, and you are likely going to get what you are looking for by following your idea to keep a camera with you and keeping in touch with your feelings...

Sometimes i wish people could hear the music playing in my head to accompany the images, they might be shocked, but I think they would sense the true emotion behind the image.

I have seen students make projects based on emotions and perhaps the following image is a good example of what you are talking about:-

http://www.afterimagegallery.com/featuredoisneau.htm

cliveh said:

I have seen students make projects based on emotions and perhaps the following image is a good example of what you are talking about:-

http://www.afterimagegallery.com/featuredoisneau.htm

Click to expand...

Great image!

Jeff

Good wedding photographers sometimes capture "joy".

Yes, but these are others emotions, not mine. I want to show what i was feeling that prompted me to make the image, not have the scene evoke the emotion and react to it by making the photo. I don't think it's possible.

Rick A said:

Yes, but these are others emotions, not mine. I want to show what i was feeling that prompted me to make the image, not have the scene evoke the emotion and react to it by making the photo. I don't think it's possible.

Click to expand...

You probably need to use analogues - things that are symbolically linked with the emotions you feel.

Your problem will be identifying which things have the same links for others.

Rick A said:

Yes, but these are others emotions, not mine. I want to show what i was feeling that prompted me to make the image, not have the scene evoke the emotion and react to it by making the photo. I don't think it's possible.

Click to expand...

I think you are correct.

I think it can be done. Suppose your feeling towards bullying were "disgust" - this could be conveyed in a photograph of bullying taking place. You would be disgusted when you came upon it, and people who see your photograph would feel it too.

I haven't been able yet. But it's one of the emotions I've wanted to catch. Several photographs in "The Family of Man" show haunt me: A girl tied to a tree - Yasuhiro Ishimoto, a boy with fist clenched holding shirt of boy with bloody nose - Homer Page, a boy swinging a 2x4 at his mom - George Heyer and a boy stealing teddy bear from a girl - W. Eugene Smith. It has been done and can be.

Good thought Bill, but once again, a reaction to a scene, evoking emotion from the observer, so the reaction is to capture what caused the emotion. You are getting close. I am at the point of saying that I would have to construct a scene that reflects my feelings at that time, and photograph that. Too contrived for me, I seek spontaneity. But I still like where you are headed with your thoughts. It very well may be the only way to convey what the photographer is feeling, much like a painter or sculptor.

I have been preoccupied with this because I want to expand my vision, step outside of my normal, safe method of seeing and taking photos. I desire more from the medium than what I have learned over the decades. It's also the reason behind changing printing methods, switching to more rudimentary methods, a return to the basics of photography, alternate methods relying solely on in-camera negatives. Frankly, I am bored with gelatin-silver and enlarging. I crave more input on the materials and outcome. Now that I have the time to push into these areas, I also need to push my mind into new areas. Most of my life was spent living on the edge, I find myself slipping into a comfort zone, it has to stop. I'm quick to tell others to think outside the box, time to heed my own advice.

I always thought this was what Stieglitz's equivalents were all about; making the photograph the same as the emotion you feel; but the Equivalence thread on LFP makes me think I am wrong.

Rick A,

Not that I have any answer, but I still think you can be genuine and show it in your prints. Happiness. That's an emotion I like to get in touch with. So there are a few places I know make me happy. I go there and bingo. Photographs of happiness in every direction I point my camera. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it. But I'm not exactly staging anything, I'm just setting the stage to allow it to happen.

Bill Burk said:

I think it can be done. Suppose your feeling towards bullying were "disgust" - this could be conveyed in a photograph of bullying taking place. You would be disgusted when you came upon it, and people who see your photograph would feel it too.

I haven't been able yet. But it's one of the emotions I've wanted to catch. Several photographs in "The Family of Man" show haunt me: A girl tied to a tree - Yasuhiro Ishimoto, a boy with fist clenched holding shirt of boy with bloody nose - Homer Page, a boy swinging a 2x4 at his mom - George Heyer and a boy stealing teddy bear from a girl - W. Eugene Smith. It has been done and can be.

Click to expand...

Hi, do you think that photo can be anything other than a little girl being terribly beaten and abused?

I don't think that two people see the same thing when looking at a picture.

Rick A said:

began to ponder if it was possible to actually display an emotion, in a manner that viewers understood, that a person was feeling at the moment the photo was snapped

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I know you're still around, so we can open this up again. What's required for something like that to happen would be the equivalent of a photographic language, where the photographer could use a type of imagery to express a feeling and a viewer would naively (or routinely) interpret that set of imagery in the way the photographer intended. There's still no guarantee that the photographer would not be fabricating the message (generating fiction) or that the viewer would not readily misinterpret (or incorrectly translate, if you will) the imagery.

Then there is the whole issue with content. If you present a sympathetic subject in your photos, it may be easier to arouse an emotional response from the viewer, but that will be identified with the subject. It's a far more tenuous link to think the photographer has the same feeling as the subject in those instances. (If, for example, you photograph someone who is destitute and the viewer feels that situation is hopeless and depressing, there's no good reason to think you felt that way when you took the photo. You may have only wanted the viewer to feel that way without feeling that way yourself.)

Even with music, the piece that sounds exciting could be played by someone who is completely bored at that moment. It could have been written by someone very depressed, following an established notion of what an "exciting" piece of music would be. There is never any verifiable truth value to what are essentially incidental posits or assumptions about an expression, even though the expression itself may be verifiable.

So the best you could expect is the photo makes the viewer feel a certain way that coincides with how you felt (or at least what you wanted or hoped they would feel).

In his book Making Photographs (2019), writer/photographer Ibarionex Perello explores how our emotions influences our photography. His advice is to journal while making images as a way to slow down and explore our feelings prior to making the image. He asserts that journaling helps cut through expectations and identify emotion when making the image. We're already recording data such as type of film, speed, lighting and location, so why not feelings as well? I find the technique cumbersome, yet sometimes rewarding.