By Scott Shephard

Coaching anyone on how to smile rarely works for me. Generally, people don’t practice a multitude of smiles - or any smile, for that matter. When I ask for a particular kind of smile, I generally get an unnatural grimace. I sometimes ask for a sort of smile because I know that when some people smile broadly (and naturally), the eyes narrow. And a long time ago, as a portrait photographer, I bought into the idea that “the eyes are the window of the soul,” a quote, incidentally, that has been attributed to Shakespeare, to Cicero and to the Bible.

The quote has also been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, whose most famous painting is the Mona Lisa, which brings me back to coaching subjects on how to smile. Mona Lisa’s smile is the one smile I have tried to teach our two oldest granddaughters to emulate. I have even shown them pictures of the great painting and in this photo I think Ibby has done well.

Mona Lisa’s smile is often seen as a sad smile, which I think is due to the fact that she is not looking directly as us. It’s a kind of a far-away, even wistful look. Here, Ibby gives me a natural smile and a direct gaze that says, “For a change I’m comfortable with your camera. I’ll offer you what you want. But you only get one shot.”

Click.

Thank you Ibby.

Canon R5 f/4.0 1/250 sec ISO 320