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.

#Petheadz – is an Instagram series by Zach Rose, a 23 year old photographer/filmmaker from Toronto. (Photo by Zach Rose)

An employee of a bakery talks on his mobile while balancing on his head a tray of freshly baked bread from a local bakery in a street in Cairo, Egypt, January 12, 2016. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

A bakery worker carries fresh bread in Cairo, Egypt on August 1, 2021. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

A bakery worker rides a bicycle as he carries fresh bread on his head in Cairo, Egypt, February 9, 2016. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews knead dough in a bakery in an Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, 29 March 2015. Matzah, or unleavened bread, is used instead of bread during the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover, commemorating the Jewish exodus from Egypt in Biblical times. (Photo by Abir Sultan/EPA)

Afghan children buy breads from a bakery in Fayzabad of Badakhshan province on February 7, 2024. (Photo by Omer Abrar/AFP Photo)