Emotions in your Photobook: From Anger to Joy, Elation to Zeal

“Emotion is associated with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. Motivations direct and energize behavior, while emotions provide the affective component to motivation, positive or negative.”

                                                                              -Steven Gaulin Evolutionary Psychology 2003

If what Mr. Gaulin said is true, this can explain photography as well. Photography has mood. Photographs have temperament. Photos have your personality. Pictures have motivation. If that is true, then photobooks, collections of those photos, have amazing potential and a powerful medium to spur emotions, show moods, portray personality and motivate the viewers, positively and negatively.
When making your photobook, whether it’s one of your child, your best friend, your vacation from last summer or your professionally photographed people from your latest assignment in Myanmar, you have to decide first and foremost what emotion you want to give to the viewer. Before you start, decide the theme and think of an emotion that you want to give those who look at the book. If it’s of your child, the emotion could be “child like.” If your photobook is of your best friend, the emotion could be “joy” or “excitement!” If its your assignment in Myanmar, your photobook emotion could be “hope” or possibly “despair.”

Your emotion also can depend on what theme you choose. Many photobook companies provide themes for their users and they choose certain colors, combinations of colors or simple drawings to convey an emotion. It’s important to choose wisely a theme that conveys the emotion that you’ve already chosen. Perhaps you want an edgy theme to convey your crazy summer photobook, that’s great. Maybe you want doves on branches for your wedding photobook to give the viewers an idea of purity, peace and love, that’s great too.

Emotions can be deceiving and can ultimately lead us astray, but emotions are something that is uniquely human and we cannot escape them. Let’s use them to make our photobooks better and communicate the deeper meaning of who you are!