When I'm photographing an event such as the recent Hands Off! Nashville rally, the question I hear over and over again from people is, “Should I smile?”
People in situations such as public demonstrations are there for serious reasons, but they feel happy and relieved to not be alone in their feelings. You’ll often see people smiling, laughing, and making new friends despite the seriousness of the reasons they're at that demonstration. I saw this when I photographed the Women’s March in Chattanooga and the Black Lives Matter March in Nashville.
One of my most popular pictures is one of a family, and you can see they're smiling behind their masks. You can see wrinkles around their eyes where their grins pushed their cheeks up high.
Before the thought leaves my mind, I want to mention one young lady who was there protesting for what she said was the hundredth time for things that mattered to her and she had a very big sign and was sitting on a park bench. When I asked to take her picture, she immediately put her hand on the sign set up tall and was like, “Take my picture.” She wasn't smiling. She was very serious in my mind. This picture is a picture of a superhero. She did such a great job. She is an excellent example of a person who wants to be photographed in the moment, but also in the purpose.
I'm not saying that the photos I captured of people smiling at other events were taken without purpose. Rather, I believe that photographing people smiling in serious moments like this highlights how humans have this wonderful ability to know that there's a problem, but have hope that we can come out the other side. I also think it highlights the importance of community. So many of us lack community these days; it's terrible that an awful situation has to bring us together.
Smiling, not smiling. Both types of photos tell the viewer a story about something that happened the moment that image was captured, so in that way, it does its job.
The goal of documentary photography isn't to catch stoic and serious people all the time. It's to capture people's history, and there's room for smiling and not smiling.
Though if I'm being honest, I'd like to live in a world where people are smiling more often than not.
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