Photography
Photography is the art of creating durable images through recording light. It can be done either by electronic means like image sensor or chemical means like light-sensitive material. Photography, the art of discovery, is one of the fast-growing industries. The photography allows people to relive the moments captured. Capturing the moments and feelings that might be forgotten and lost through the time is one of the great purposes and uses of the photography.
Psychology and Art
The science of mind and behavior is called psychology, a diversely interesting and academic discipline that tries to understand individuals and their feelings and thoughts. Psychology has a broad scope as it investigates many phenomena that include learning, perception, memory, intelligence, emotion, thinking, behavior, personality, mental illness, child development, and many others. Art has always had a connection to the study of psychology and emotions.
Art is an aesthetical therapy for many people. Art and aesthetics being a human phenomenon is a psychological process. Bringing out the emotions from an artwork, painting your thoughts on canvas, capturing the memorable moments and feelings in a photograph are some of the ways in which an artist or the subject of the art tries to communicate.
Photo Psychology
Photo psychology or Photopsychology is the study of the relationship between photography and psychology. Photographs provoke an emotional response from the viewer and make them identify the consistent style of a photographer. Sometimes the story, a photograph tells, makes people enchanted by it. Other times it could be just a portrait telling more than enough in facial expressions and the gaze of eyes. Photography can be defined as a visual means of communication and relationship between the viewer and photographer.
Photography mostly is the means of capturing the moments and memories, so they can be remembered for the times when you look at them and it tells you the whole story of the time. A strong image always tells the story that the photographer intended to. This communication and connection is the base of photo-therapy. As the saying is that eyes are the windows to the soul and a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture tells a million things through the eyes of the subject.
The experience of photography teaches us to focus on our lives and things around us more elaborately so that we can understand the nature of the things. Two photographers can capture the same thing or same scene of an event, but still, tell a different perspective of the story.
Important Factors in Photography that affect the Psychology of the Mind:
The story an image tells and how the viewer interprets it, depends on many factors like visual elements, subject/s, their relationship with each other, depth and complexity of the implied relationship as well as physical proximity of the objects. If the photographer is in control of the relationship or implied relationship in between these factors and objects, the composition can grab the attention of the viewer with a story.
Different principles of photography can be used to tell the story in different ways. These principles include similarity and repetition of objects in the photograph, continuation of elements, proximity, closure, and the law of Pragnanz.
How Psychology can be used in Photography:
The key to great pictures and photographs is understanding the psychology. How a subject presents himself/herself and what angle is used to capture are two of many things that if used properly and differently can change the body language and feelings of the visual picture. Vulnerability, power, professionalism, and many other traits can be captured by using the understanding of the psychology of human nature.
