October 11th, 2011 Displaying emotions is the key to nonverbal communication among both humans and animals. People often behave in certain ways as a direct result of their emotional state, such as crying, fighting or fleeing depending on their state of mind, and emotional displays also form the foundation for human society. In photography, the capturing of true emotion is what photographers strive for when it comes to photographing people. However, as any actor or actress will tell you, displaying emotion in a staged scene can be quite difficult.
The beauty of emotion is that it is often subtle and is natural, however, cameras tend to affect the behavior of models, so the challenge for a photographer is to draw out the true emotion from a scene. In an episode of the popular medical show House M.D., the photographer who is being treated at the hospital is asked about her photography and how she manages to capture emotion, to which she replies: “I just keep shooting until I can see what’s really inside of them.”
Here, you’ll find inspiring and emotional portrait photographs that range from subtle to overt in emotional display.
A whiter shade of pale by Felicia Simion
