All the people we meet, all the things we know, and all of our experiences shape our souls, forever marking our faces. This was probably the main idea of the performance piece created by Chinese artist Zhang Huan, in which his face was painted over by three calligraphers with the names of people he knew, personal stories, and random thoughts. Truly, it amazing just how much we can find out about a person just by looking at their face. Surely, not everyone has the ability to see into the soul of the person just by looking at their face, but those that do can easily see the person’s personality, their intelligence, and sometimes even get glimpse into their past. Though it sounds like magic to people who don’t have this ability, it is completely true. Somehow, our mind can pick up on the miniscule changes of the facial structure and figure out the dominant facial expressions of that person. (Photo by Zhang Huan)

Nora Muaid stands in Zawraa Park on December 2, 2011 in Baghdad, Iraq. The park's 180-foot tall Ferris wheel opened earlier this year and is the second largest in the Middle East. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Competitors dressed in a gorilla outfits prepare ahead of the Great Gorilla Run on September 24, 2011 in London, England. Hundreds of people dressed in gorrilla suits participated in the 7 km run around the City of London which is hoped will raise £400,000 GBP, anabling funding for projects dedicated to the protection and preservation of Gorillas. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

A leopard runs to at people as they run for cover in Katmandu, Nepal, on April 10, 2013. According to reports, 15 people were injured including three policemen and two officials from the Department of Forest. The leopard was later killed with the help of Nepalese policemen and local media. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/Associated Press)

ATTENTION: VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY AND DEATH

Girls take part in the traditional seasonal Christmas run along the streets of Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, December 17, 2017. The festive run attracts many hundreds of people to the capital dressed as Santa Clause to take part in the sporting event. (Photo by Mindaugas Kulbis/AP Photo)

A participant holds his dog as colored powder is thrown into the air during the Color Run in Lausanne, Switzerland, 12 September 2015. The international 5km running event is inspired by the Hindu Holi spring festival of colors. (Photo by Valentin Flauraud/EPA)

A hare runs on a small road as the sun rises in Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, June 12, 2023. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP 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.