I wanna hold your hand...

People often say that a person's eyes are windows to their soul. It is generally hard to look someone in the eye for too long without creeping them out, especially someone you don't know. So without being a freak and bending social norms, how does one get a better idea of what bubbles beneath the surface?

I say take a look at hands. They often reveal much about emotional state. Through my ongoing study of human behavior and poker, I've had many opportunities to study random sets of hands. I can't share those findings because one day I might find you across from me at the poker table. Regardless, I am fascinated by hands. Everything about them (fingers, nails, knuckles) and all varieties (pudgy, lean, wrinkled, soft, clean, dirty) interest me. What our hands are doing and clutching can also share a good deal about who we are and what we are feeling.

Photography has given me another outlet to study the manifestation of human emotion. With certainty, my eye is regularly drawn to hands. Occasionally, I stay true to myself and allow my hands and my lens to be led to my eye's axis. Oftentimes, that is enough to tell the story I want to share through a frame.

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Conformity

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I leave you with a preview of my photography project on my grandmother. For some reason it has been difficult for me to go through and edit her photos. I am glad I got the opportunity to document and photograph my grandmother, but it is a subtle reminder that her time on this earth is limited. She's not ill, but you have to figure someone who's been around since 1919 is safely over the hill. The only question is how much hill is left.