As a former photographer/photograpic assistant who was involved
in taking official portraits, I was trained that straight-on
shots were considered "aggressive" and revealed any asymmetries
in the face. You posed your subject to show more of one side of
the face to hide facial asymmetry. We tended to use the same
side of the face across people so that we didn't need to change
the position of the lights/strobes.
Ken
---------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [email protected]
Professor
Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
---------------------------------------------------------------
On 8/17/2012 3:44 PM, Rick Froman wrote:
I had the same reaction as Annette. If they are looking at
posed portraits (which I assume they are since candid
photographs often don't even show the subject looking at the
camera), in almost all cases, the photographer tells you how
to pose (including exactly where to point your chin). It
appears the portrait photographer at our university asked
everyone to look directly at the camera (there doesn't appear
to be an obvious preference). Assuming common rules for
portrait photography, could there be some other explanation
for this difference? If there is a difference, it would seem
to lie in the eye of the portrait photographer (or the
interaction between photographer and subject) and not in the
disposition of the subject of the photo.
Rick
Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social
Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3519 John Brown
University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761
[email protected] (479) 524-7295 http://bit.ly/DrFroman
-----Original Message----- From: Annette Taylor
[mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012
2:10 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] Want to appear more rational? Put your right
cheek forward.
Well, we ended up being posed by the photographer who took the
official photos for the entire university!
A
Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological
Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego,
CA 92110 [email protected]
Subject: Want to appear more rational? Put your right cheek
forward. From: "Jeffry Ricker,
Ph.D."<[email protected]> Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2012
20:22:18 -0700 X-Message-Number: 9
A paper just published in PLoS ONE looks at person perception
with respect to profile pictures on faculty members' home
pages. Here is their hypothesis: "Since there is an asymmetry
in the degree to which emotional information is conveyed by
the face, with the left side being more expressive than the
right, we hypothesised that academics in the sciences would
seek to pose as non-emotional rationalists and put their right
cheek forward, while academics in the arts would express their
emotionality and pose with the left cheek forward." In
general, this is what they found, although not with psychology
faculty, who pointed the left side of their faces towards the
camera more than their "hard-science" colleagues.
---
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