When someone points a camera at you, what do they usually ask you to do?
Smile? Say “cheese”?
I absolutely hate that! Not just because a smile on command doesn’t look like an honest smile for a lot of people but also for the message it conveys:
We only want smiles in photos because we need to show how happy we are. Even if we’re not.
Loads of children grow up with the command “Look at the camera. Now smile!” and whenever someone does that while I’m in charge of taking photos, I usually ask them to stop. I will continue photographing the children when they’re done performing for the camera and capture photos that much more capture the essence of the child that way.
Here’s why I think it’s problematic when you ask your children (or anyone really) to say “cheese” for a photo:
I get it, you want nice photos of your kids, ideally smiling in the camera – because they’re happy face is the most beautiful thing ever – but it teaches your child to perform and smile for every camera.
A forced smile is never genuine. It’ll never look like the one they give you when they are actually excited about something.
And the message we’re sending with this is that they’re only worth being photographed when they appear happy. While in reality, happiness is only one emotion of many and definitely not the only one we should capture.
I’m sure you want your children to feel like they can be whoever and however they want – that shouldn’t change just because there’s a camera involved.
Smiles are appreciated in photos but shouldn’t be forced for my camera!
The documentary approach my photography follows means I’ll never ask anyone to do anything in particular and I’ll never ask for a smile. So if I happen to capture one, it’ll be genuine and worth so much more than a “cheese”.
The photos I create that way show an array of emotions – because you know how many different ones your child can cycle through in a really short amount of time. Wouldn’t it be fun to have more than just the happy smile captured?
If you, too, appreciate that all emotions can and should live on in photos, then the documentary style might be just the right way to photograph your family. Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how that looks like in reality.
