“Emotion – We all know what emotion is, don’t we? Or rather, we know what it looks like when we see it in someone else, and we know what it is when feeling it ourselves. There it is. That word.
FEELING.
It’s inextricably tied to emotion, to the emotive state.
Are they the same? Most dictionaries define emotion as a psychological state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort, often accompanied by physiological changes. An instinctive state derived from one’s circumstance or relationship with others. In photography, it’s often what separates a great image from one that’s not. One that makes us stop, to study, to connect, to identify, to smile or feel pain, but in the end to feel something. To feel connected to the world around us.
We Are Social Creatures.
Seeing an emotional expression in another makes us feel. It brings us into that vignette, into that experience. Sometimes unwillingly, often by choice. It’s what I look for when I shoot. I want to feel alive, to feel alerted and aware of the world and it’s people around me and so when I see an expression of emotion I am driven to capture it. To freeze it forever. Perhaps to later relive being there, perhaps to kick start, like a jolt of current or caffeine, just for that moment, what it feels like to be alive. Sort of like when we’re healthy we can take it for granted because we don’t really feel anything, but when we’re feeling sick, only then do we know how good it feels to not be sick. To feel, to be in the space of another’s emotion, makes me feel, makes me appreciate, that I’m not simply a bag of bones but a sentient, spiritual being.
And so I look for emotive moments, for people in the throes of something emotional to them. Laughing, crying, fighting, playing, dancing, loving. Just not merely existing. But living. And when I see that, when I’m near to that, I throw myself into the moment to capture it. No boundary, no space. Right there, part of that moment. Feeling that moment and shooting by touch, by feeling and instinct, the joy or pain, while at the same time being dispassionate as I’m composing, lighting, dancing for the best angle. Being drawn in by the moment but separate from it, too. And, at the end, feeling that I was witness to something ineffable, that I, too, was alive.
Most who know me would say that I’m a people person. That probably explains why I love to shoot people. Portraits. More often than not in some far away place where I don’t speak the language. I don’t need to speak the language. We all connect at some level, we know what fight or flight means. It’s primeval. And so is knowing when it’s ok. When it’s safe. We see it someone’s eyes, in their gesture. I hope people see it in my eyes as I approach them.
That’s about the order of things for me. I’m drawn to people, to emotions and to experience, to connection and to the capturing of the world and of its people.
I think it’s the people thing that draws me the most. Every photographer, every artist, finds their soul feeling most alive, most alert, when it connects, intersects, with that which somehow speaks to it. For some it’s their way of looking back at their life, for others their way of looking forward. I think my inspiration comes from both. The looking back part clearly comes from my Father. For as long as I can remember my father took pictures. For him, it was a way to connect with friends and family. Cameras with bellows, fancy sounding Zeiss lenses, bulb flashes that had the coolest sound when they popped, light meters and film, my first Brownie Hawkeye camera. My father was the one at family events who was always taking the pictures. He was always handing out copies of prints that he’d made for his friends and colleagues.
I saw first-hand the love he had for capturing moments, of how his camera enabled him to connect with friends and strangers, and to share those moments with those he cared about. So I guess that love of connecting with people, of sharing moments with others has come naturally to me and… And inspired me to do more. To continue the tradition and to chart my own path forward.
