In some respects I deal in Happy Faces.
It is a simple truth that the pictures that sell are the happy, smiley-face pictures – and we go to great lengths at times to get them. I think that’s fair enough: photographs are permanent memories. We want to remember ourselves in our best, happiest times. Photographs of those we love smiling make us happy.
Great photography invokes a strong emotional response from the viewer.
On that count this photograph definitely does it for me. It fills me with a father’s Love and Compassion more than most of the images I’ve taken recently. It does it to me every time I see it.
This is a picture of my eldest daughter on the day her sister got ‘the best packet of Moshi Monster cards ever’ and she got a pack of very ordinary ones.
And I can assure you at this point that hugs were administered, feelings were acknowledged, but the general perspective of things wasn’t lost. It’s just a pack of collector cards. There will be other packs. She is your sister. I know that doesn’t help much right now. I know that you’re doing your best to do the right thing. I know it still hurts. I love you.
I think she doesn’t really like that I love this image. I know she doesn’t want me to think of her like this because it isn’t representative of her overall persona. It is a snapshot of an instant of sadness. I was even reluctant to put it up here because, beautiful and evocative as it is, it’s not representative of the general character of her personality or my professional work.
In fact I only took it to try and distract her into helping me scout this room as a possible location for a very different portrait. But since she also just made the ‘front page‘ with a more representative image then I think at the moment it’s OK.
Photography is capable of capturing the full gamut of human emotion. We most frequently use it to capture the joy of family life and that is most definitely what I specialise in. But there must be a place for remembering the rest of our everyday human experience.
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