First photographic experiments...

Using some of the external stimulus that I have found through internet, research, television news and what I've learnt through looking closer into the work of Ekman, I attempted to make the sitter feel a certain emotion that could be photograph as evidence. I found this experiment really interesting but at the same time difficult to produce a response from the sitter as they were constantly aware of the camera and at times this stopped an subconscious response from happening. I decided not to concentrate on taking the perfect photograph or using the perfect lighting in this series of photographs as I felt that this would hinder my time spending just trying to experiment with getting a response from the sitter and what worked well and didn't.

In response to the external stimulus used I felt that it was relatively simple to gain an happiness/smiling response through the use of humorous videos and pictures as well as news stories. Also disgust was created by using photographs that would repulse people but also by making them imagine the most disgusting thing they could eat or smell, in the case of the photographs shown it was the smell and taste of fish that repulsed the sitter. Surprise was mostly created by using shocking news stories and images. Also anger was created by scenario based stories and by simply trying to get on the sitters nerves. Sadness was created in a similar way as anger using scenarios, for example how would you feel if you was to lose a loved one? Fear could also be created by showing a series of images of fearful faces however this was not one of the easiest emotions to get. Contempt was one of the most emotions to captured, more than likely because its one of the hardiest to spot.

I decided that I would develop these photographs in black and white because in my artist research I felt that the black and white images worked at lot better in terms of bringing out the details on the face, which I knew was something I wanted to achieve. The photographs shown are a select few of the images I have developed and show what I was trying to achieve particularly in terms of compositional value. I feel that as a first experiment this has worked well but it needs a lot more developing and perhaps another dimension to make the images stand out more and become more visually appealing.