# Express emotion through photography



## ziggo (Jan 23, 2011)

Hi,

Recently I had to define how I expressed myself. As in: words, music, physical, visual etc...
As I like photography I was thinking that I would like to express myself with the photos I take. By thinking longer I found out that I did not know how to do that. The pictures I take are things that I think are beautiful, weird or funny. They don't express how I feel at the moment. I was wondering how you are tackling that problem.
Sometimes I do see photos which express an emotion like love (a photo of a heart formed shape) sadness (a dead flower) or something else. But mostly I see those photos as cliche and very fake (don't know if its the right word). So that's not what I'm looking for.
I am interested in your thoughts on this problem.


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## kkamin (Jan 24, 2011)

ziggo said:


> Hi,
> 
> Recently I had to define how I expressed myself. As in: words, music, physical, visual etc...
> As I like photography I was thinking that I would like to express myself with the photos I take. By thinking longer I found out that I did not know how to do that. The pictures I take are things that I think are beautiful, weird or funny. They don't express how I feel at the moment. I was wondering how you are tackling that problem.
> ...



Look at photographs by really good artists and think about what they are trying to communicate emotionally with their work. Try to figure out how they accomplished this. This will allow you to start to understand the visual language of photography/design/art.

The catch though, is you have 1,000 people look at that photograph, you will get 1,000 different interpretations, and of course the artist will have their own. 

We all bring our own life experiences to everything we perceive. If I was abused by snow monkeys when I was a child, I would find an otherwise serene image of a snow monkey family relaxing in a hot spring, quite hostile. If I am from the USA, I have connotations of the color red to passion, violence, love, etc. If I am from a different country, red might have a different cultural meaning.

But nonetheless, images can carry great emotional power. And often your intentions can be very clear. I think lighting is one of the hugest factors in creating an emotional response in people. Learn lighting. Even if you are shooting in available light, learning when to take an image during certain conditions is you engaging in lighting. How saturated your colors are. Color casts are big (a warmer color temperature [orange] often emotionally warms an image, while a cooler color temperature [blue] makes the image feel more cold). Camera angle, framing, expressions of people, depth of field (shallow feels more intimate), etc. There are countless creative choices at your disposal all the way from planning your shoot, to image capture, to processing/retouching your images. 

My 2 cents.


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## PASM (Jan 24, 2011)

Picasso once said something like "I don't seek, I find". That's mainly how i do photography. With little or no preconception. Subjective interpretation rather than expression. 

Photography for me is a sentimental pursuit most of the time, where i record where i was yesterday/this morning etc. It's personal.. selfish. It can be shared and collectively enjoyed/discussed but that's not the motivation for me.



ziggo said:


> Hi,
> 
> Recently I had to define how I expressed myself. As in: words, music, physical, visual etc...
> As I like photography I was thinking that I would like to express myself with the photos I take. By thinking longer I found out that I did not know how to do that. The pictures I take are things that I think are beautiful, weird or funny. They don't express how I feel at the moment. I was wondering how you are tackling that problem.
> ...


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## KmH (Jan 24, 2011)

Personal emotion is fleeting. It's very difficult to make a photo that expresses the emotion of the moment.

However, you can set up a shot that expresses an emotion you or others have from time to time.

But then, the emotion you feel while releasing the shutter is usually very different than the emotion the image you are making conveys.


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## kkamin (Jan 24, 2011)

KmH said:


> Personal emotion is fleeting. It's very difficult to make a photo that expresses the emotion of the moment.
> 
> However, you can set up a shot that expresses an emotion you or others have from time to time.
> 
> But then, the emotion you feel while releasing the shutter is usually very different than the emotion the image you are making conveys.



It's probably hard, but artists like musicians, painters, and photographers seem to be able to do it. I think the term 'fleeting emotion' is what is making it sound overly complicated. All emotions are fleeting and changing. People are able to express emotion through art, I think that is the main motivation for creating art, next to ideas.


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## ziggo (Jan 24, 2011)

kkamin said:


> It's probably hard, but artists like musicians, painters, and photographers seem to be able to do it.



That's the weird thing. I can see how a painter expresses emotion, I can see how a musician does it. But I can't see how a photographer does it. 
A photographer creates a very realistic image of something and the only thing he can change is the lightning and colour of the photo (assuming no model). This realistic image has a different emotion for everyone and a photographer can not enforce his perception on the viewers. A painter can. He can abstract the subject in such a way that most of the people will recognise the same emotion. A musician does this as well. Most people agree on what a sad song is and what a happy song is.


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