A model walks the runway during the Neon Sao Paulo Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2013 Collections Show on June 14, 2012 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by Fernanda Calfat)
A model walks the runway during the Jean Paul Gaultier Ready to Wear Spring / Summer 2012 show during Paris Fashion Week on October 1, 2011 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Models showcase designs on the catwalk during the SCFASHION Qi Gang Spring/Summer 2012 show on the Fourth day of China Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012 at the Banquet Hall, Beijing Hotel on October 27, 2011 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Gardener Peter Glazebrook poses for photographers with his world record breaking onion at The Harrogate Autumn Flower Show on September 16, 2011 in Harrogate, England. Peter Glazebrook from Newark, Nottinghamshire claimed a Guinness World Record with his giant onion weighing 8.150 kg. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
People watch the light installation “Onion Skin” by artist Oliver Ratsi performed during the Vilnius 700th anniversary celebration, in Vilnius, Lithuania, 25 January 2023. (Photo by Valda And Kalniņa/EPA/EFE)
Director Rian Johnson takes a photo of cast member Janelle Monae at the premiere for the film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 14, 2022. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
Workers tend green onion plants among nearly 1,000 acres of terracing in fields in the Majalengka Regency of West Java in Indonesia in July 2021. (Photo by Andika Oky Arisandi/Solent News)
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.