EXPERIMENTATION | oksphotography

Experimentation: Expressing Emotion

My goal for this project was to explore the portrayal of emotions in photography and portraiture. In each of the emotions I want to shoot, I have listed key facial expressions/body positions that convey this emotion.

Robert Plutchik was a psychologist who studied the theory of emotion. He believed there were eight 'basic' emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust and joy. In 1980, he created a 'wheel of emotions' consisting of basic, primary and secondary emotions. This wheel is shown to the right. Plutchik was criticised for missing out common emotions such as pride.

As my views differ from Plutchik's, I have chosen a slightly different set of emotions for this project. These are:

love
interest
happiness
trust
boredom
sadness
fear
anger

I believe that these emotions are a cycle and that each can lead to another. Some also show similar properties. For example, love can be linked to interest and happiness as humans show

an interest in the people they love, and these people make them feel happy. This is why many of my editing techniques used for different emotions are similar.

LOVE: a strong feeling of affection or pleasure.

Connotations: admiration, hope, pride.

Portrayal: interested and focused eyes, talking, soft facial features, smiling (or trying to hide smile).

I created two sequences of photographs (above and below) using different coloured tints to show their relation. I chose a soft pink because red/pink are often colours associated with love. They create a comforting and overwhelmingly happy mood which is enhanced by the happiness shown in the boy's eyes and smile. The darker blue tint was chosen because it is quite an exposing colour and creates a contrast between the background of my image and the boy. Blue is seen as an honest colour, which I saw as an element to the emotion 'love', as with love comes honesty and truthfulness in a relationship.

I liked the simplicity of the two photos above. My other images were all very colourful and tinted, so I wanted to do the opposite with these and show a plainer side to the emotion 'love'. While editing, I increased the highlights and shadows of the photographs to create a larger contrast between black and white to signify the unsubtlety of love.

My final photo for 'love' is my favourite. I liked this because it conveyed the happiness through the boy's facial features - his focused eyes and smile. His body position gives the impression he is looking at something or someone with admiration.

INTEREST: wanting to know or learn about something or someone.

Connotations: anticipation, distraction, enthusiasm, absorption, attentiveness.
Portrayal: open-eyed, concentration, set jaw, narrowed eyes, discussing.

I was not sure how to enhance these images during editing to make them better suited to the emotion 'interest'. Of all the emotions I explored, 'interest' was probably the most basic, but I wanted to include it as I thought it was very important in the representation of human emotions as it is an emotion that is very different in every individual and contributes to the basis of our personality, skills and hobbies. For example, a person's interest in sport can change the way they like to spend their time or what they are good at. For my shoot I went very simply for the portrayal of interest in a conversation through sequence. My final image (bottom right) differs from the others. In this one I wanted to show subtle interest - the boy's head is turned to show he is listening in, but he is not expressing his interest.

HAPPINESS: feeling happy, showing pleasure or contentment.

Connotations: joy, optimism.
Portrayal: smiling, bright and engaged eyes, speaking, relaxation, contentment.

I purposely made the content and editing style of these photographs very similar to 'love' and 'interest' as I wanted to convey the similarities between the three emotions. They all have very positive connotations and create links in our heads of happy memories of friends, families, places, holidays, etc.

I chose to do a black & white sequence in my 'happiness' shoot to show that colour does not equate to happiness. Many colourful photos are seen to be 'happy' photographs, whereas many black & white photos are seen to be sad, miserable or depressing. Increasing the highlights in the photographs is an easy technique to lift the photo and maintain a bright and happy mood.

The boy looked very young and innocent in the photo above. His smile made him look relaxed and content. I really liked this photo because it reminded me of the importance of making an effort to look happy and smile. It had a very positive effect on the boy, and me as the photographer, from a very simple act.

TRUST: firm belief in someone's reliability, honesty, or ability.

Connotations: acceptance, confidence, expectation, certainty, faith, assurance, relaxation.
Portrayal: relaxation, talking, smiling, supported, innocence.

I used an orange tint over these photos as in my research it was acknowledged as a 'relaxing' colour. Trust is linked to people feeling comfortable and relaxed around the person they have put their trust in, so I wanted to see how I could enhance this through my editing. I used two different orange tints - light and dark - so I could compare which gave a greater effect. I think the light orange was more effective as it conveyed a more optimistic mood.

My final images for 'trust' were of two hands. This was an alternate view of the emotion 'trust' and I chose it because it showed the reliance humans can have on one another. I named some of my connotations of trust as expectation, certainty, faith and assurance. I think the linked hands portrayed these emotions effectively as they showed the connection between the two people.

In the saturated photograph (right), you can see the fingers are holding each other up, showing strength in the link between the two. The people had to have some certainty in each other that they were not going to let go.

The significance of a pinky promise in showing trust was important, as promises are often related to relying on the other person to keep their promise. This creates an expectation of each other, which does not come without trust.

Connotations: apathy, dullness.
Portrayal: unfocused eyes, rested head on hand, tiredness, unfocused.

BOREDOM: feeling weary or impatient because you are unoccupied or lacking interest in current activity.

Boredom was one of my more difficult emotions to portray. My idea with the photographs (left) was to capture a lack of interest in his eyes and how he hangs his head. A big part of being attentive and interested is appearing alert, which includes showing attention and making eye contact. By having the boy hang his head, he was demonstrating a lack of energy and effort, which are often associated with feeling bored.

I also took an unusual approach at boredom by making the photograph, in terms of its elements, quite boring (more so in the right image than left). This included using a large aperture to create a shallow depth of field as blurring the majority of the image meant it was in no way eye catching which would have drawn attention and interest. I filled a large amount of my frame with the dull colours of the background. This grey colour held a very boring vibe which made it effective in conveying the emotion 'boredom'.

I think the element that makes the boy look bored in the image below was his lack of expression. Instead of having certain characteristics which portray boredom, I thought the most accurate of them all was showing no characteristics at all.

SADNESS: feeling or showing unhappiness or sorrow.

Connotations: sadness, grief, remorse, disappointment, depression.
Portrayal: not making eye contact, head down, no smile, look of tiredness, dismay, confusion.

In these photos, the boy is trying to cover his face and protect his body. Quite often people try to hide how they feel and I wanted to portray this through his body position. His sunken shoulders make him look as if he has given up. People often cover their faces when crying or upset, which is why I got him to cover his face with his hands. This has a very saddening effect on the viewers.

The two close up shots both held different purposes. With the sharp photograph, I simply wanted to show in detail the sadness covering the boy's face. Using a macro shot to show this meant there was no distraction from his body position or colour. Making the photograph black & white gave it a very somber mood.

I found some of my sadness shoot held many similarities in facial expression, body position and editing style, so instead of including them all I chose a variety with significant difference.

I enjoyed experimenting with a mixture of black and white and colour. I think the b&w was more fitting to the theme of sadness as it provided quite a dull and sombre mood.

The common body position was a hung head and slumped shoulders as this showed a lack of strength and motivation.

My favourite was the photograph above because its high contrast left the boy's face exposed. Having his eyes closed ans head in hands showed he didn't have any energy left which is often how we feel when we feel sad, depressed or upset.

Connotations: terror, apprehension, anxiety, unease, doubt, phobia, panic, shock.
Portrayal: alert eyes, clenched jaw, closed eyes, concentration, vulnerability, protection.

FEAR: feeling afraid due to threat of danger, pain or harm.

While taking the two images above, I had the word 'phobia' in mind. I got the boy to shake his head to give the impression he was trying to get rid of his thoughts. His clenched jaw showed he was tense, which we often are when we feel scared or threatened. Having his eyes squeezed shut showed that he was trying to block something out.

I purposely used a high exposure on these images to make him seem like 'a deer caught in headlights'. Quite often when we feel fear we are exposed, or cannot hide from it, which is what I wanted to portray in these images.

ANGER: a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.

Connotations: rage, annoyance, loathing, disgust, aggressiveness.
Portrayal: clenched jaw, narrowed eyes, intense eye contact, no hint of smile, tense.

I worked with shadows for my 'anger' shoot as they darkened my images and produced quite a fearful shape. The knitted brows and clenched jaw of the boy portrayed his anger and annoyance, as if he was trying to hold it back (causing frustation). During editing I increased the clarity and decreased the brightness of the images as I wanted to drain them of light as it is often associated with happiness or relaxation.

I used a red tint on the photograph (above) as red has the connotation of danger, which is often what causes our sense of fear. The boy's facial expression also conveys a sense of desperation.