Kristina and I are back for another theme episode of the Toy Photographers Podcast!
Like our previous “Play” episode, we will have picked a specific theme to photograph, and taken a photo with that theme in mind. We then jump on Skype, share our photos with one another, and discuss what we see, both literally and in terms of how it relates to the theme we picked.
Our theme for this month was “Feelings,” and we had quite the interesting discussion! The episode is live now wherever you get your podcasts (including iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play), and it’s embedded right here on this post. To follow along with the episode, make sure you check out the images Kristina and I took below!
My Images
I cheated a bit this month and took two images to discuss. As you’ll recall from our “Play” episode, Kristina challenged me to photograph a figure so that you couldn’t see its face. I not only accepted her challenge, but took it a step further and removed the context from my subject all together. Could I successfully depict emotion and feelings simply through body language?
What feelings do you see?
The emotion was harder to pick up on than I initially anticipated, so I tried again. I wanted to keep the basic concept the same, so I only added one bit of context: color.
Primary colors for primary emotions
Is this image more successful? You’ll have to listen to my chat with Kristina to find out…
Kristina’s Image
While Kristina’s image may seem more straightforward on the surface, it actually brings up a lot of questions! What emotions do you feel when you look at it? Are you happy about this apparent kill? Is Leia herself actually happy about what she’s done? Leave it to Kristina to pack a beautiful image with so much ambiguity!
Join In!
If you want to join in on photographing the theme, use the hashtag #tp_feelings (or next month’s theme, #tp_power) and tag both myself and Kristina to make sure we see it! We’d love to see your interpretations and discuss them on our next episode. You can also send them to us directly at toyphotographypod@gmail.com.
-James
If you’ve made it this far, come continue the discussion over at our G+ community! And while you’re at it, subscribe to our weekly email round up so that you never miss a post!
Post Scriptum (from Kristina)
Stormtrooper_pete took the challange and posted this image
I believe that any creative work has the opportunity to invoke feelings in viewers. I also believe that, on sharing, the artist loses the control to effect which feelings they will be. Each viewer takes on the role of interpreter, and their feelings may change due to culture, tradition, experience, education, and bias.
By example: I feel pensive interest in Kristina’s image. It reflects my interpretation of the image; I do not see a happy face. The eyebrows are level, which does not indicate happiness to me. Leia’s facial expression seems thoughtful, almost melancholy. Also, I do not see her character as the killer (my observation is that a ‘clean’ skeleton has been dead for quite some time).
Another interesting podcast Kristina and James.
Thank you Tony, I’m so glad you say that. My vision is that the viewer will feel something when they look at images. And in the best cases will reflect on why he or her feels that way, and what is actually say about them as a viewers. And I believe all viewers will see different things in images because of the context, the experiences, the knowledge we have and bring to the table. This is one of the reasons that I think it’s so important to talk about what we see and how we read the images we see, like and consume. Thanks for sharing your way of looking and what you saw.