A girl with white powder on her face celebrates the Songkran holiday which marks the Thai New Year in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 14, 2024. (Photo by Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)

People play with water as they celebrate the Songkran holiday which marks the Thai New Year in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 13, 2024. (Photo by Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)

A member of a Thai buffalo racing team tries to control it before a sprint race during an annual buffalo racing festival in Chonburi, Thailand, Monday, October 6, 2025. (Photo by Sakchai Lalit/AP Photo)

Students take photos with a giant King Kong sculptures made out straw in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai on April 3, 2019. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Photo)

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.

Revellers use water guns as they participate in a water fight during Songkran Festival celebrations at Kowloon City district, known as Little Thailand as there is large number of restaurants and shops run by Thais, in Hong Kong April 12, 2015. The Songkran festival, also known as the water festival, marks the start of Thailand's traditional New Year and is believed to wash away bad luck. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

A model wearing a face shield poses with a Mitsubishi vehicle during the media day of the 41st Bangkok International Motor Show after the Thai government eased measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Bangkok, Thailand on July 14, 2020. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

A woman is soaked as she runs down the street as revellers take part in a water fight on Khao San road on the eve of Thai New Year, locally known as Songkran, in Bangkok on April 12, 2023. (Photo by Jack Taylor/AFP Photo)