david rees, smiling

I recently photographed a man who told me about a camera made by Sony that has a smile recognition function.  The camera 'sees' when the subject is smiling and takes the photo at, I guess, this most opportune (dare I say decisive?) moment.  This idea seems both creepy and flawed to me. For one, everyone's smile is different.   The man who told me about this camera is a perfect example.  He said that, try as he might, he was not able to make the shutter go off.  His smile spreads rather than curls.   His story made me think of time spent shooting with David Rees for his book, How to Sharpen Pencils. David's smiles are subtle and when he laughs it's a little reluctant, shy and infectious.  Over the course of our shoot, David impressed me with his ability to keep a exceptionally straight face while we made strange and surreal pictures of him prepping to and then sharpening pencils.  After the shooting was done, I was left to edit a thousand pictures of David down to the couple hundred that would appear in the book.  Bleary eyed toward the end of my editing, I noticed this picture.  When David came over the next day to look at photos, I showed it to him and said, "I think you are smiling in this one."  He looked at it and said, "Yes, I am."