Some photos evoke strong emotions. Emotion is an essential element of a photo as well as composition. So how do we embed them in our images?
Like all works of art, photos can evoke strong emotions. Some people can make you cry with joy, while others can make you roar with laughter. Some can make you cry with despair, and others can make you boil with anger. However, many of the people you see may not bring about any emotional response and you will look at them with indifference.
Great photos can evoke both positive and negative emotions, and those photos have a stronger effect than those without them.
What are emotions? My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as such: a strong mental or instinctive feeling such as love or fear. That’s probably not very helpful. It is only a limited description and does not include physiological manifestations such as a lump in the throat, butterflies in the stomach, or the pain of a broken heart. There is no scientific consensus on a definition, but we all instinctively know what emotions are and what they do to us. They drive our behavior and drive our actions. Emotions are a mixture of mental states, biological and psychological manifestations, and physical changes. If your photos can deliver on that, they’ve succeeded. But how do we get there?
First, we must recognize that the viewer is different from the photographer. Whether the photo gives off a positive or negative feeling is subjective, depending on the viewer’s belief system. I could look at pictures of my son when he was a baby or pictures of my friends and relatives who have passed away, and they would evoke different emotions for me than they would have for me. their feelings towards you. You will experience a smaller emotional response because you will lack that personal connection.
On the contrary, you may look at the picture of something that you feel positive about while I may not react to it. Meanwhile, other people may have a negative reaction to the image.
For example, Les is a staunch Republican and has photographed Donald Trump at a rally. That picture now hangs on the wall of the office with pride. Les’ colleague, Jo, disagrees with everything the former president stands for and doesn’t feel disgusted when he looks at the photo. Jo is a boudoir photographer who considers their photographic art and is pleased with their results. However, Sam, another boudoir photographer, views Jo’s pictures with disdain, saying they lack style and resemble cheap 1970s pornography. Meanwhile, Max. angry at Sam’s pictures because they are sexually explicit. Meanwhile, Max’s 10-year-old sees the pictures and giggles at them with amusement.
A photographer cannot decide what their viewer will feel. They can only create images that provoke an emotional response and hope that others will feel something, too.
Second, we should remember that, like most works of art, a photograph can produce two different reactions simultaneously. Visuals can be something that our audience finds uncomfortable. However, they are still able to appreciate the positive advantages of a photo, such as composition, tone control, or even the risks the photographer takes when shooting.
In other words, liking a photo is not the same as liking its content. However, some viewers will be unable to separate their emotional response to the content of the painting from the image itself. It is not uncommon for a photographer to receive abuse for posting photos online of an emotional subject when all they are doing is documenting an event. Sadly, not everyone has the intelligence to distinguish between the subject and the photographer’s intentions when applying their creative skills.
Third, the harsher the subject and the closer it is to personal experience and chronology, the greater the emotional response. Take the following image as an example.
Most people have a hard time knowing who the subject is and don’t have an emotional reaction to it. But this poor quality painting is all that remains of Billy Grohl.
Who is he? He is a serial killer. Despite his heinous crimes, our emotional reaction to this photo may be less than our reaction to someone who is not a serial killer and is alive today or part of our recent history. Grohl is believed to have killed more than 100 victims in the early 1900s. There will be exceptions, but even knowing his crimes, for many people, the photo will still generate little emotional reaction. It is more emotional than Richard Nixon’s photo because the latter is closer to the present and is a real memory in many people’s hearts. mind.
In turn, for most people, the image of Nixon will evoke fewer emotions – positive or negative – than the image of Donald Trump. As we saw earlier, a photo of Trump can be amusing to some but angry and scornful to others. But either way, it will likely be a strong reaction as his presidency is still fresh on most people’s minds.
As photographic artists, do we want to create an adverse reaction from our viewers? Maybe we should. The negative reactions to the image outweigh the positive ones. So watching a subject frowning is much more effective than seeing the subject smiling. This probably explains why so many portraits are taken with models looking unsatisfactory.
Defining a photograph as art is more likely to evoke an emotional experience than a journalistic photograph? How surprising, Positive emotions are impaired in art, as opposed to when they are in non-artistic contexts. In other words, a photograph of a smiling person will have more of an emotional impact in a documentary than an artistic one.
However, there was little change in the viewer’s emotions when negative emotions were portrayed, whether the context of the painting was artistic or non-artistic. In other words, negative emotions like disgust and anger are just as strong if the image is art or journalism.
When putting emotions into a photo, we should consider “Smooth handling.“It is the ease with which the mind processes information. Simply put, more fluid images – images that are easier to understand – are liked by more people. As a result, expressing emotion in a photo will result in the photo being appreciated over a photo with increased complexity where emotions are harder to decipher.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t take more confusing images. However, they won’t attract much audience if you do.
The central element of every aesthetic experience is its ability to evoke emotion in the observer. That’s the whole point of art. However, the viewer’s understanding of the emotional complexity in an image depends on their emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is directly related to a person’s IQ. Therefore, to put it bluntly, an intelligent person usually has a broader and deeper understanding of emotions. Therefore, they are more capable of reading the emotional nuances of images than a person of lower intelligence. Similarly, the smarter the photographer, the greater the ability to put emotion into their photos.
Of course, there are even more definitions of intelligence than of emotions, so what we mean by intelligence is opening a broader debate than is likely here. . Furthermore, there are limitations to IQ tests. However, you can see this theory in action in the images displayed on various news websites. For example, images on low-speed websites, such as Mail Online, exploit a limited number of basic emotions, such as lust and anger. When you move to luxury, the range of emotions expressed in the photos becomes more multifaceted because, in general, readers are smarter. The lesson we learn from this is to direct our image to our desired audience.
Do you consider the emotional impact of your photos? It would be great to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
I hope you enjoyed and learned something from this article. If you have, then read my last on a topic related to What kind of photographer are you?.
