college work

This project is about humans' consciencious and unconsciencious facial expression.

My original idea was simply to compare the smiling and not smiling face and its physical appearance and effects visually. However, after research about expressions, both controlled and spontaneous, inspiration from Bettina von Zwehl's work, and further more, my personal experience during the photoshoot, selection and the edit of final photos, led me to a more complex observation and conclusion.

I understand that the stimuli for genuine and pretented expressions are coming from different parts of the brain. I also believe that there is always one 'real face' at a time and the others are used for hiding the real emotion a person feels at that particular moment, for the purpose of deceive or manipulate other people or even the person himself. 

This project is an observation about humans, including myself, and comparison represented through two simple images of each person. Although it might appear as a cold and over-objective study, I strongly feel it is an intimate and understanding approach.

Snapshots of people I approached on the street for photos. With pairing the two images the black and white represents the person's 'acted' face and the colour version shows the real mood I felt they were at the moment of the quick photoshoot.

I might be wrong though; we can never really look into strangers or even people we think we know well.

 

Once again, I thank these kind people for their help and willingness to take part in this small project.

Bettina von Zwehl - http://www.bettinavonzwehl.com/main.html