The Art of Emotions

This is a visual investigation of emotions where emotions are universal. I’m interested in the nuanced expression of the emotions. I use the wheel of emotions as a tool to communicate with my model about those nuances, and that as the series progresses those nuances are able to be recognized by the viewer. My end goal to capturing these photographs is to compare all the portraits together on how differently each person expressed emotions. I want the pictures to tell a story based on the models’ express emotions without forcefully making the model to give me an expression on the spot. I started off using the one out of the four core emotions from the wheel towards my models in the beginning of this project. I’ve aimed at the other core emotions, but I wanted to dig deeper into the sub category of the four core emotions. I wanted the viewer to see more than core expressions of emotions from the wheel. I’m more interested into the nuance of the sub category of the core emotions and a subtle difference two each one. The sub categories from a core emotion is the same as the layers of an onion. Therefore, the deeper you go with emotions from layer to the next the more specific it gets. For example, one of my models felt happy because they got a job but as we dug deeper using the wheel of emotions she felt very content and proud. These are the emotions that stand out to me the most. To pin point the sub categories from the core emotions when I started asking questions to the models. I want to understand what my models went through whether it’s a normal day or crazy event. The authentic expression come out naturally by asking them very personal questions. With the aid from the wheel of emotions my models got a better understanding of how they felt in that moment. These events trigger an emotion(s) that gives me the raw expressions from the models for me to photograph. The sub category helped the models understood what their actual emotions is besides the core emotions. I was able to help my models translate those emotions from a specific event that happened to them into a portrait