Do photographers fall in love with their subjects?

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) elaborated his aesthetic views in his works on aesthetics and philosophy of history, as Danto states in The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art:

Since Croce postulates that art is a kind of language and language is a form of communication, emotional communication occurs when the emotion expressed in the work is directed at something (such as the artist's wife). At that time, the disconnection between the way in which reality presents the object and the way in which it may be presented is only targeted by the perceptual equivalents, which no longer mark the distance obscured by artistic progress or the artistes virtuosity in creating illusion, but exist in the externalized or objectified artist's feelings towards the object of representation. Thus, the feelings conveyed to the viewer enable him to infer the artist's feelings from the disconnection. (Ouyang English translation, 2005, p. 115)

In general, few deny that art can convey emotion, and the question is whether that transmission will be diluted or misinterpreted depending on the character and the way it is delivered.

From the perspective of Croce's "empathy theory", he believes that art is a communicative language, whose guarantee lies in a basic premise: "Everyone has feelings".

What creation expresses is the combination of the artist's inner feelings and concrete things.

Because human consciousness has the ability to transform sensory experience into imagination, when this ability is implemented in creation, it forms the source of artistic beauty.

I once asked a portrait photographer, "What is your secret to making people beautiful?" "The secret is to love the people you photograph," she said.

Artistic creation is a reproduction of concepts, and emotion is also a factor in the formation of concepts.

When a photographer picks up a camera to shoot, he or she may have a certain construct in his or her heart, and want to shoot a portrait of a certain style and beauty. However, when the model stands in front of him or her, it is likely that the person and the role in his or her construct are different.

This may be due to the models being different from what they expected, the scene not matching the models, or the photographer's poor grasp of concepts and real situations.

The last situation often happens, the aesthetic and technical training has not reached the level, so empty equipment, but can not express the heart of the feeling.

In addition to this factor, the first two factors all express that the photographer's expression of emotion is basically limited, that is, restricted by time and space conditions.

This can make us think about why Michelangelo chose stones personally, because when art becomes an activity through the real world and with the real world as the field of expression, it is inevitable to face the problem of creation materials.

So we understand that when Croce is talking about the artist's empathy from within, it's not just any emotion.

When a photographer expresses his love for a model, it is not a love limited to a certain love or irreplaceable object.

It's a projection of inner emotion, mixed with a passion for the art itself, and for the work of self-concept that is about to become reality.

And that love for models is not as passionate as it is in some movies, or as an excuse for some unscrupulous photographer to hypnotize himself.

Indeed, Ke Sijie once talked about having sex with the photographer during filming and then forming a partner in his book Universe Wanderer.

But does the photographer have such relationships and feelings with all of his subjects, or some of them? So we can't magnify a special case into a universal fact that should be accepted.

Love occurs between the photographer and the subject in the photography activities, which must be established on the premise that the two people have the common love feelings.

But what we see in reality is the photographer projecting his own wishful emotion to the model, or is it really active emotional activity between the two?

On the contrary, when the model carries out professional physical display with the psychological state of "feeling for the camera", this empathy is only consistent with the photographer's empathy, that is, "in order to achieve a perfect work, the performance of thoughts, emotions and technology as much as possible".

In the end, what the viewer sees through the photographic work is that both the photographer and the model are empathizing with the creative activity itself, rather than having an ambiguous relationship with each other.

In this way, the necessary conditions for "being seen and felt by the viewer" and "understanding" can be developed.

So photography for the hone of technology can not be deficient, the aesthetic feeling, artistic thought and other aspects of the study of the necessary lessons for a professional photographer.

As for emotion, it is only a part of the process of creation, and only a necessary and sufficient condition for some expressionist works.