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)

A dog dressed as UPS worker is seen during the 28th Annual Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade at East River Park Amphitheater in New York on October 28, 2018. (Photo by Gordon Donovan/Yahoo News)

Donovan Mitchell #45 of the Cleveland Cavaliers dunks the ball against the Brooklyn Nets during the second quarter at Barclays Center on December 16, 2024 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

Actors dressed up as zombies walk around while posing for photos with passers-by in New York's Times Square on Friday, October 10, 2014 as a promotion for the season premiere of AMC's “The Walking Dead” this Sunday, October 12, 2014. (Photo by Gordon Donovan)

The last of the summer roses are dusted with a coating of frost as the first freezing temperatures descend on Britain on November 7, 2011 in Knutsford, England. The roses are the last blooms to survive the Summer at Curbishleys specialist rose nursery in Cheshire. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Women, with traditional clothes, collect rose petals at a rose field during rose harvesting season in Isparta, Turkey on June 17, 2020. The collected roses are exported to world wide known perfume factories, especially French companies, after the some process at the factories. Women wear traditional clothes to promote rose harvest with the support of Isparta Municipality. (Photo by Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Tourists in traditional costumes visit a rose garden during a rose cultural festival on April 27, 2021 in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)