Right about the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I started a photo series on hand portraits and self-portraits and wrote about hand gestures and its role in photography and visual arts. Truth is that hand gesture, and also body language and facial expression all play a role in visual storytelling. They all define an unspoken language, if you will, through which subjects express themselves and communicate with us, photographers and viewers alike.

Also, as with any creative work, titles do matter. Titles usually give the first hint at what the image, the visual story, is about (even when there is no (more) image, as it sometimes happens).

So, let’s take a look at a few images, behind their titles and what the subjects might try to convey through their poses (body language):

State of Mind is one of the self-portraits captured during the COVID pandemic (#photographersinisolation). Does the image give any insights about the subject’s state of mind during those days? Does it convey despair, depression, disillusion, or disappointment?

I’ll Cover You is also a self-portrait captured during the COVID pandemic (also #photographersinisolation). Like with many of my photographs, its title was inspired by the movie RENT. Perhaps the photograph offers a glimmer of hope or the idea of hope. When creating this image, I was thinking about the role our hands played during the pandemic—washing and disinfecting, no touching. Do we still remember? Will we?

And in yet another self-portrait, Through The Lens (TTL), maybe I just want to seek refuge behind the camera.

On the other hand, Man in Scarf could tell the (visual) story of a mysterious subject, don’t you think? In many ways, the photograph is a blend of mystery, a sense of fashion (at least in part), and more.

Waiting also evokes a sense of mystery, but in a slightly different way, I think:

For more similar examples, click here.

Every time we photograph people, we try to capture their personalities, their souls, and stories in their gestures, body language, facial expressions, and so on. Photography is not about the written or spoken word, but rather the visual word (if there is such a thing), about capturing moments in subjects’ lives, moments that, as time passes by, help bring back memories, including the memory of that subject.

Here are additional examples from my editorial photography work:

As always, thanks for stopping by,

Alina Oswald