PHOTOANALYSIS: How to Interpret the Hidden Psychological Meaning of Personal Photos

This year's parlor game psych-fest, more fun than a barrel of therapists, and it's a snap. Just pore over those family candids, notice group alignments, facial expressions, settings selected by subjects, body arrangements and tensions and you're into instant analysis. Why is father clutching daughter? Why is daughter strangling Teddy Bear? Why is Teddy. . . ? Photoanalysis works for public shots, too. Among the over-200 photographs promised are candid and semi-formal ones such as FDR, Missy and Eleanor (apart and downcast); Henry Luce at four in a man of destiny study; the enormous Joseph Kennedy family in baroque arrangement; etc. etc. Cynics might ponder the influence of the professional cameraman's dominance or the sneeze of an amateur wielding a Brownie. . . But this will probably speak with the same clout as Body Language on the sales charts.