Friday, August 28, 2015

Feelings and Emotions in Photography. Part 2. The Photographer and the Viewer.

The emotional state of the photographer has the large impact on the emotional quality of his/her photography and on the emotional state of the viewer.


Different people will connect with photographs in different ways, or maybe will not connect at all.
Surely you want to make your viewers to react – to become sad or to laugh, to be touched or to become thoughtful.

There’s only one way to achieve this goal – to share your own joy or sadness, empathy or anger through your photography.

The following quotes have been contributed to the feelings and emotions of photographers that are transmitted to the viewers.

“The challenge of photography is to show the thing photographed so that our feelings are awakened and hidden aspects are revealed.” (Emmet Gowin)
 “When we look at a photograph, we are faced with only one version of reality and what we understand is only one of its given truths. In reading a photograph we do many things. We absorb information, we impose meaning, and we experience emotion. This is a dynamic process in which the picture depends on the culture of the photographer and the culture of the viewer.” (Pedro Meyer)
 “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as objective reality. It’s only reality as we experience it. And whatever emotions I’m feeling, for whatever reason I’m feeling them, get channeled into my work. If I’m feeling outraged, grief, disbelief, frustration, sympathy, that gets channeled through me and into my pictures and hopefully transmitted to the viewer.” (James Nachtwey)
 “Although I believe my work is basically optimistic, I would like people to view my photographs with an open mind. I am not looking for a specific reaction, but if my images move people or excite them I am satisfied.” (Jerry Uelsmann)
 “When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”  (Robert Frank)


Feel free to comment and share!
Thank you for reading!

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