Please, won’t you smile? (Part 1 of 3)
I try to achieve various moods when doing travel portraiture. Sometimes I work to capture serious expressions. Other times, I try for something more light and joyful.
Here, I really liked this woman’s smile and laugh. However, every time I raised my camera she would immediately look solemn and serious. I tried and tried to get her to crack a smile, but wasn’t succeeding in the least. Then her mother (to our right) commented in Hindi that a small part of her breast had been exposed for the previous photos. She and I hadn’t noticed this and we immediately started laughing with her mother. Bingo! That’s the shot.
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2 Responses to “Please, won’t you smile? (Part 1 of 3)”
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Did you find out why she wanted to have her picture taken with a straight face instead of a smile? I’d be curious to know what her motivation was.
Good question. I was curious about this as well because it happened numerous times during my travels through Rajisthan, India. Near the end of my trip, the answer came to me quite drastically when I visited a remote desert village where they still practice female infanticide. I think the answer has much to do with the patriarchal society they live in. In the next two entries of this series, I will delve deeper into this issue. Stay tuned and thank you for asking.