Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

A man in a wartime uniform, poses for a photo on an abandoned tank at a beach, ahead of the 60th anniversary of Second Taiwan Straits Crisis against China, in Kinmen, Taiwan on August 19, 2018. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Activists from the climate action group Ocean Rebellion perform a stunt outside the Science Museum, in London, United Kingdom on May 19, 2021. (Photo by Hannah McKay/Reuters)

The clown is on tour at Outlets on June 7, 2020 in Wuhan,Hubei Province,China.Wuhan has seen its urban life gradually get back to normal following encouragement from local city management to open up street-stalls. Since January, China has recorded more than 81,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 3200 deaths, mostly in and around the city of Wuhan, in central Hubei province, where the outbreak first started. (Photo by Getty Images/Stringer)

Gemma Sadler models a fabulous Georgian costume, including a wig made from flowers and foliage created by Florist of the Year Helen James, during the staging day for the 2021 Harrogate Autumn Flower Show at Newby Hall, near Ripon, United Kingdom on Thursday, September 16, 2021. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

Daughter being told off by her mother. (Photo by Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

Fareeda, wife of Shameem Ahmad Ganai, who according to Fareeda was arrested during a clampdown a day before the scrapping of the special constitutional status in Kashmir by the government, tends to her husband's sheep in their house, in Pulwama, south of Srinagar, August 13, 2019. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Woman on phone in hotel room. (Photo by DreamPictures/Getty Images)