Can you photograph emotion?

Chris101 said:
Now I'm wondering if it is possible to photograph a lack of emotion?
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That is some great good for thought. Not if you can take a lousy photo that doesn't show anything, but can you take an excellent photos that is devoid of feeling? Are we as humans capable of such null feelings?
 
Avotius said:
... can you take an excellent photo that is devoid of feeling? Are we as humans capable of such null feelings?
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I would say without hesitation, No, and No.

Even 'null' human feeling is feeling: a good photograph of an old, rusted tiller in an overgrown field forces the viewer, any viewer, to emote, to null it, so-so it or love it.

Then there is this much-more-extreme 1943 photo, which forces the gamut of emotion, reaction, feeling. It's easy to 'feel' the resignation of the doomed prisoner, sense the mix of dread and lust in the crowd, but what of the heartless man raising the sword? Do we write him off as null? Was he deviod of feeling? No, sadly, he was just a human being with different feelings.

The range of emotion in this picture makes me wonder – going back to the OP – maybe you can't photograph emotion. maybe all emotion rests strictly within the head of the picture taker and each individual beholder and not a drop in the physical image??? Am I making any sense?
 

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One of my portrait techniques is to ask my sitter to look directly at the lens, not smile or any show any other emotion. Then I wait for a longer than normal period before pressing the button. I believe this strips away any fake emotion for the camera and lets their inner feeling show. Or maybe they are just irritated waiting for me to shoot.
 

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soooooo...I guess it's a moot point, emotion lies in the head of the photog, though it looks like it's on the face of alot of pics here, whatever.
 
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