moody, more serious expressions are salable. In dealing with teens and adults,
the best expressions are usually more subtle—happy, but subtle.
While squinty eyes are cute on a baby, not many adults really want to see
themselves with no eyes, huge chubby cheeks, and every tooth in their mouth
visible. Large smiles also bring out every line and wrinkle on a person’s face.
Adults are always self-conscious about crow’s feet, smile lines, and bags under
the eyes—all of which are made much more noticeable by huge smiles. While
retouching can lessen these lines on the face, the retouching often reduces the
lines too much, resulting in subjects that don’t look like themselves.
With smiling, timing is important. It is easy to get a subject to smile, but
once your client smiles, it is up to you to decide when the perfect smile occurs
and take the pictures. When most people first start to smile, it is enormous. If
you take the shot at this point, you end up with a laughing or almost-laughing
smile. Once your client has a smile like this, you must watch and wait. A mo-
ment after a person smiles that laughing smile, the expression starts to relax. It
isn’t that big a change, but it is the difference between a laughing smile and a
smile that is pleasing to an adult client.POSING 77ABOVE AND FACING PAGE—Gentle expres-
sions and relaxed smiles are the most flat-
tering expressions for most people’s faces.