How do you capture emotions?

[floatingby]

I travel a lot. To define a lot, I have done about 120 000 km of air travel in the last 4 years. I've seen magnificent places, ugly places, places that fill me with aw and wonder, other that fill me with dread and all kind of emotion in between.

What I fail to do is bring those emotions home with me in my pictures. As example, when I look at work from Ansel Adams, I feel something that I associate with what it would feel like if I was there. I can't do that. Can this be learned, and if so, how?

Example of the stuff I bring back so you know what I'm talking about:

It is properly exposed, in focus and there is interest in the foreground and the background. It's also completely devoid of emotions, the best word I'd use to describe it is: sterile. When I look at this it bring back memories, but that's it.

I understand this could be a complex subject, so link to book or web article would be ok.

 

[D-B-J]

It takes practice. It takes time. Lots of time. Very infrequently do I feel like I take an image that captures "emotion." The latest image that I have captured emotion is the one I'll post below. Part of what makes an image display emotion is the caption you give to it.

_RSP5512 by f_one_eight, on Flickr

With the following caption:
"Think of this more as an artists statement rather than a "here look at my pretty picture." We (landscape photographers in general, myself mostly) spend so much of our time focusing on the grand things. The incredible sunsets. The beautiful clouds. The massive waterfalls. And for me, it's often difficult to enjoy the simpler things--take this shot as an example. To me, it represents calm. Focus. Peace. But it's not grand. It won't ever be an award winner. It's not a shot that would stand out in a group of landscape photos. But I love it. Somehow, it's simplicity speaks louder to me than some of the "whoah!" shots I've taken."

What I've found is that you often don't capture emotion when your searching for it. When you take a photo because you feel an emotion, rather than taking a photo to epitomize an emotion.. that's when you'll get it right.

But no, it's not teachable. It's what we all strive for. I'll spend my whole life trying to capture "emotion." And most times I'll fail.

Jake

 

[Designer]

How do you capture emotions?

Aye, now there's the rub, in't it?

If it was easy, then we wouldn't need Ansel Adams, would we?

 

[floatingby]

How do you capture emotions?

Aye, now there's the rub, in't it?

If it was easy, then we wouldn't need Ansel Adams, would we?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. Do you mean Ansel Adams was a super-hero of photography, an outer-worldly being sent to us by the 14 gods of ancient Greece to wow us with his magical photographic plate? If it is, I'm not sure I'd believe that. Partly because I have seen some of his earlier work, and it wasn't that great, which means he had to learn somehow, so if he had to learn it means it's not magical, and that it is learnable; partly also because I have seen other do work that come and get you, I've used him as an example because pretty much everybody involved in photography has heard of him and seen an example or two of his output.

I've established that it is possible to learn simply by the fact that others have learned before, I just don't know where to go from here.

 

[floatingby]

What I've found is that you often don't capture emotion when your searching for it. When you take a photo because you feel an emotion, rather than taking a photo to epitomize an emotion.. that's when you'll get it right.

I believe you're talking about instinct, and yes some have more of that in specific field, but that only means they'll get out the gate faster.

But no, it's not teachable. It's what we all strive for. I'll spend my whole life trying to capture "emotion." And most times I'll fail.

Jake

Not teachable? Maybe not formally, I wouldn't know, but sometime all it take is for somebody to say something, or you read something somewhere, and suddenly it "clicks", and something you struggled with, maybe for years, become easy. As an example, in my trade I often have to weld steel parts together. For 15 years I struggled with welding vertically, it was solid enough but not very esthetic and I didn't know how to make them better; then one day a co-worker, out of the blue, said while I was welding "don't look at the bottom, just look at the top". A simple thing, but from that day on I could have put my vertical welds side by side with anybody's in the world and not be ashamed.

 

[Derrel]

There are NO emotions in landscapes or cityscapes. PEOPLE exhibit emotions. The easiest way to get viewers to "feel" or experience an emotion is to guide them, by using a title or caption. Half of the "emotion" people experience when looking at a photo is provided by external clues and cues that the artist, or curators, or editors plant in the minds of readers. Second, as far as the hackneyed work of Ansel Adams...if the stuff were stripped of the name an exhibited anonymously in this era, it would go unnoticed for the most part. He shot over 90% of his nature stuff from his car, right by the side of the road. In 1940, that was good enough. Today, not so much.

 

[floatingby]

There are NO emotions in landscapes or cityscapes. PEOPLE exhibit emotions.

Yeah, probably poor phrasing from my part, but you get what I was meaning, yes?

 

[Derrel]

I guess so. Again...titles and captions and context play a huge part in how people experience a photo.

 

[limr]

So, to be more precise, you don't want to capture emotion, you want to elicit emotion from the person viewing the photo. Is that what you mean? You want them to feel something when they see the picture.

You mention Adams. Is that because his landscapes make you feel something? What do they make you feel? Look around the picture and see how you are responding to the different elements. Is it the light? The sky? The composition?

Go find other pictures that elicit emotions from you. Is there anything that they have in common with Adams' pictures? What is the common thread? Try to do a little deconstructing of the image to figure out what elements you are responding to. That might lead you to notice those things more quickly when you are the one behind the camera.

Of course, as you've already found out, once you simply set about with a checklist of "Things That Elicit Emotion" and you take pictures with everything on your checklist, you might still be falling flat. But let's say you don't go looking for the elements of the photograph, but instead you wait until you feel something, and only then do you attempt to capture that feeling (rather than just capturing a pretty scene.)

 

[dxqcanada]

When you "see" something that you want to capture in a photograph, you should stop and really think about what it is that made you think it was worth it.
Many photographers miss ALL the elements that make up the image.
It could be as simple as a shadow ... or as complex as the wind blowing, the feel of the sun, the wide expanse of land, movement of the sand ... all those elements made up the feeling you had in stopping.

Now taking all those elements in an image ... ah, now that is picture. This is where knowledge of manipulating the camera/lens to get that comes into play.

... just don't ask me how to do it.

 

[manaheim]

I once heard a cartoonist explain how if he wants the strip to feel like it's moving forward and the characters are progressing, he draws the horizon lines so they lean down to the right. If he wants the reverse, he draws them down to the left.

I once heard a puppeteer explain how a puppet falling and looking up is thinking of where they came from. A puppet looking down is thinking of the impending impact with the ground.

As a writer, the shape and sounds of words I choose has an effect. Short words with hard sounds can be harsh and abrasive. Longer words with soft sounds can be gentle and soothing.

As artists, we have tools within any space that we work within. In some cases the tools are less readily available, such as in the case of a landscape, however, there still are tools you can use.

Photography is made up of subject, composition, color, exposure, focus. What of those things can you change within your image? What of those things can lend emotion. What about standing lower? Higher? What about later in the day?

You also seem to suffer from what many photographer's do... thinking that you can dial in the technical aspects and have an image that works. Unfortunately so many of us strive so long to get those technical aspects right (as well we should), that by the time you get to the point where you have it down, you've sort of lost sight of the artistic part that was the point in the first place. Think beyond the image that is properly exposed and framed. It's not just about what is proper, it is about what has impact.

Think through some scenarios, try them out. See how you feel when you look at them. I believe you will find some differences.

 

[Designer]

Do you mean Ansel Adams was a super-hero of photography, an outer-worldly being sent to us by the 14 gods of ancient Greece to wow us with his magical photographic plate?

From your original post: "As example, when I look at work from Ansel Adams, I feel something that I associate with what it would feel like if I was there."

You brought up Adams, so you tell me.

 

[Bryston3bsst]

So, to be more precise, you don't want to capture emotion, you want to elicit emotion from the person viewing the photo. Is that what you mean? You want them to feel something when they see the picture.

This is correct. You don't capture emotion, you elicit.

The problem with that is that everyone that looks at any given piece of art has a different response. The emotion you're looking for you're never going to find as it's in the viewer, not in the picture.

Think about any pictures that you have seen that have caused a response, good, bad, sad, happy, in you. Dorothea Lange's pictures from the Dust Bowl era might not necessarily be technically great but they strike emotion. Most any pictures from the Holocaust aren't technically great but those sure as hell bring forth emotion. Some of those I can look at even for a minute and tear up. That's not emotion in the picture, it's emotion in me.

What does have to do with you is being able to see it and realize that this particular moment will, in fact, result in an emotional response in many viewers.

When my best friend's daughter got married someone at the wedding just happened to catch a moment when the bride and her dad hugged after the ceremony. There is a look on her face of just absolute bliss that will choke you up in minute. All because someone was there at just the right moment.

 

[Gary A.]

I think what you are looking for ... are images which draw viewers into the picture ... images that causes the viewer to linger and think. (Much of Adam's magic is lost in this day and age because cameras and image processing have become so good and easy. When Adams first started making an impact on photography the image quality and his tones alone were head and shoulders above 99% of everyone else. But I digress...)

Your image shows a desert scene ... and it is on the meh end of the scale. What were you attempting to project to the viewer, the heat ... the solitude ... the vastness ...? Look at a scene, figure out what that scene says to you and that is what you have to capture. Shoot for one theme, previsualize in your mind the final image, then position the camera, select the lens and settings that best reflects in the camera, the final image that you envisioned.

Your image is flat, unmoving, meh ... largely because of lighting. Shooting from the same vantage point later in the day would have gone a long way to making the image more interesting. You can create optical drama, use the FOV/DOF to your advantage. Moving into focal lens which are different than how we see makes image or interesting. Using DOF/aperture different than how we see makes images more interesting. Harmonize with your equipment to the point that you see images at different focal lengths and different apertures without raising the camera to your eye. With landscapes, think more, shoot less, but make every photo count.

 

[The_Traveler]

Your picture above doesn't elicit emotions because, imo, there is no hint of what is important to you and why you took the picture.
The elements in the picture have some symbolic meaning to us but the PPing doesn't add anything and the formatting is confusing.
Are we supposed to look at cacti or mountains or river?
How do you feel about them?
If you don't know what's important and, if you don't point to that in some way, viewers don't know how to feel.

This is an extreme example of PPing but a fair example.