Back when I was at tafe, I was told that the hands are the third most emotive part(s) of the body, behind the eyes and the mouth. I'm not sure if that was based on anything scientific, but it sounds about right to me. So this week, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to try and see how many different emotions or feelings I could come up with that could be communicated using only the hands. I wanted to avoid gestures like flipping the bird (I just know someone was gonna ask about that) or the peace sign, since they're very specific, and I wanted more of a general vibe. I realized it's kind of a nebulous concept, but the ones I came up with are (from top left) guarded/skeptical, friendly, unimpressed, panicked, confused/incredulous, patient, angry, at ease, and indicative. Special thanks to Abby for helping me focus the camera during setup.
From a lighting perspective, it was helpful to have quite a bit of distance between the subject and the blackdrop, so that there was very little light hitting the background. That meant it was more uniform and I could still wear dark clothes to help emphasize the hands without losing all subject detail completely.
EXIF data (all component images):
1/200, f/4, ISO 100
50mm focal length
1/200, f/4, ISO 100
50mm focal length