Today I’m working on a batch of corporate portraits I shot for a law firm this past week, and this is one of me standing in for a lighting test prior to the start of the shoot. I never did think I’d need to wear a mask and latex gloves for a photoshoot, outside of shooting in a hospital setting where they’re usually required anyway, but here we are. The client didn’t ask me to wear either of them, I just chose to as a general courtesy to those I was photographing.

Notice that even though the mask is covering my mouth, you can still see that I’m smiling due to my eyes. I call this “smiling with your eyes,” which I often tell clients is important to convey a sense of genuine emotion and friendliness to the viewers of their portrait. You want to be able to see that they’re smiling through their eyes without even being able to see their smile.

Oddly, I felt a bit uneasy myself during the shoot due to the attorneys not being able to see my expression, or that I was smiling, as easily, as I was interacting with them. I say this because I often will pull various expressions out of those I’m photographing through how I interact with them. Things I say to them, and sometimes just how I look at them. I would imagine that, occasionally, this could come across as me being unfriendly when I’m really just refusing to let them give me some half-hearted effort due to preconceived notions that they don’t photograph well, or because they’re uncomfortable in front of a camera. So me smiling as I interact with them like this helps convey that I’m not being a jerk.

I also felt a bit uneasy due to me having a “bad scalp day.” Yeah. Take note of the red patch of skin on my forehead due to the uncurable psoriasis issue I’ve had for a few years now. There’s nothing like introducing yourself to somebody in the middle of a global pandemic and trying to put them at ease in front of your camera, with a rash-like patch on your forehead that looks as if it could be contagious, that isn’t.

It was a good shoot though. I got multiple good shots of all those I photographed and managed to do so without any of them thinking I was a jerk.

I think. I hope.

One of the attorneys even came back for a second batch without her jacket on, after she’d previously told me that she did not at all like being photographed. She told me she had fun with the first batch I did of her, so, I took that as a compliment. Apparently, I was doing something right, mask on, or not.

Hopefully, like her, the rest of them could see that I was smiling through my eyes, much like you see in this shot, and that I just wanted to do my job well by capturing them well.

All this being said, please go out and do your best to smile with your eyes – and smile with your heart – at a world that doesn’t seem interested in smiling back at any of us this year, y’all.