After going to a very long photo shoot this past weekend with multiple photographers shooting the same models, I was fascinated to see how differently the models were perceived and represented by the different shooters... It's opportunities like this that remind me we really are looking through each other's eyes when looking at photos. Along those lines, I've had a couple of dialogues recently (during a critique and w/ friends) about the act of capturing the dignity of a person when we photograph them. This is one of the most interesting alchemies of photography to me-- the interaction photographer and subject have during the process of creating a portrait. Do photographers have a certain essence we seek in our subject, either knowingly or unknowingly? Do we help evoke or motivate it based on who we are? Does this speak to our individual sense of humanity; either or respect for it or lack thereof? What does it say about us as photographers when we capture some one's intrinsic dignity; what does it say when we don't? This glimpse is something that fancy cameras, expensive lenses, and all the megapixels in the world cannot produce.