Really just curious – do photographers here shed tears?
I don’t mean from all the “pain” we associate w/ LF photography – like stumbling w/ a heavy tripod in the field, trying to focus old eyes on the GG, losing an expensive lens, or breathing fixer fumes in the darkroom.
We already know you cry plenty over that.
I mean the spontaneous, involuntary tears when seeing (experiencing) an exceptional print – portrait, still life, landscape, architecture. You know, that welling-up in the eyes, in response to depth, balance, harmony, mystery, reverence, etc. Perhaps it was one of your own prints fresh from the tray or printer, or a particular print by a Master in a book or museum.
What caused it to happen? Should it happen? Was it due to the subject matter, the lighting, the presentation, your state of mind at the time, a combination?
No need to be embarrassed – we’re grown-ups around here – please tell us more...
No, no tears over photos. But other things do move me to tears...usually stuff relating to kids -- being a father seemed to have started that. And sometimes thing that I am reading can be so beautiful and moving that it moves me to tears. But strangely, not photos (yet).
For me I think it has to do with the development of emotion over time. Each of the media I mentioned (movies, books, music) is experienced over the course of minutes, hours, or days. If I become emotionally vested in a character I can be moved to tears when that character dies, mourns or loves. But a still photograph is just that: still. There is not enough time in the viewing of a still image for me to be moved to tears. Any emotions evoked by a photograph are evoked very quickly and then remain static.
I have had tears triggered by still photos, but not really the photos themselves. Example: an online friend from a pilot forum I also participate in has a small daughter, just over three years old now, who had a malignant brain tumor removed in 2010, found when she was just 18 months. Just a few years back this would have been 100% terminal but now her prognosis for full recovery and a normal life was good, and they thought it was in remission. It just came back. She had surgery today. She did very well with the surgery but no word yet on results, prognosis, etc. except that whatever the surgeon found she will probably need more radiation; they knew that going in. Seeing her photo on Facebook today definitely got me misty eyed, but it was all to do with what I knew of the story, not the photo itself so much.
I think that's probably it. A still photo can be beautiful, ugly, moving, but in and of itself rarely tells enough of the story to move to tears. W. Eugene Smith's Minamata series could do it, but again not a single image in isolation without knowing the story.
A very good photograph dosent make you cry like a book or film because it is the cry. Like the scream painting that has just sold for so much, it may have a scream on the canvas but the painting itself is the real scream.
Could I ever cry over a photograph? Maybe if it did a painfully honest and realistic job of portraying a real-life horrific event against humanity... or maybe if I sold a photo for a million dollars... yeah the latter would surely make me cry.
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