The Ephemeral Line with Eternal Repercussion
Maybe because I have always liked stories, or because I always enjoyed reading, or maybe just because I was raised watching soap operas, but I always see life in chapters. Plots, subplots, beginnings, ends, and a hundred chapters accumulate stories of one theme. As if life was a collection of short essays. Lately, among the several topics that have been amalgamating in my brain, there has been one that keeps circling back. Today while I was listening to the radio, the host talked about smiles. Bingo!!!! That was my call to go deep into the subject since so many conversations and thoughts kept returning to it.
They were discussing whether showing teeth in a big grin is a sign of aggressiveness on the radio. My first instinct is that it is the most ridiculous idea ever. But the fact is that the first time I had to face that idea was almost 15 years ago, and since then, I have revisited the discussion in an infinitive number of brain deliberations. At that time, I was working as a documentary photographer. I had the wonderful opportunity to take a workshop with my all-time, an absolute favorite role model in the arena and undoubtedly one of the best legendary photographers alive at the time.
Photo of me taken by Mary Ellen Mark with the hairless Mexican dog and my doubtful smile
Mary Ellen Mark was incredibly influential in my work. Her capacity to explore the deepest fields of humanity through her lens did not only catapulted her into fame and worldwide admiration, but she also became an inspiration for those of us who strove to find the delicate balance between moving images and realism, between showing the world with dignity and love but also with an open heart. Spending ten days learning from her in beautiful Oaxaca and surrounded by wonderful people, some of whom became my favorite people in the world, is still one of the highlights of my life.
What do you do when you get to learn from your hero? I can tell you what I did. I cried, and by crying, I don’t mean happy tears. No, I sobbed with pain and exhaustion and frustration. Fortunately, plenty of fresh mole and mezcal softened its effect. With her signature braids and tribal jewelry, Mary Ellen was a fierce critic. We would shoot independently during the day throughout the city or visit surrounding towns where I photographed the animal markets and the farmers, or I would stay in the city and follow all kinds of families, from the wealthiest to the poorest, documenting each member’s every move (if it sounds stalky is because it was). At 12:30 sharp every day, I would sit down with her for my daily critique. I showed her contact sheets of all the photographs I had taken the day before, and she would sit down with her magnifying glass and make the harshest comments I have ever heard. I am not that sensible, I promised. After all, I went to art school, where learning the value of critics is the number one lesson. But her compassion in her work did not translate into her teaching style. I would leave our meetings with my tail between my legs, taking every ounce of energy I had left to strive for better pictures. Around 6 or 7 pm, we would get together for discussions, and then the magic started: dinner and mescal and the perfect moment to ask all the questions I could think of asking my role model. She would relax and laugh occasionally and generously answer every single question. I returned to the hotel every night around midnight to develop the day's pictures and drop them off at the lab by 7 am. I barely slept, and exhaustion took the best of me.
In the end, those became life-altering days for me. My photography leaped drastically; what I learned about the craft and business of shooting images was invaluable. She ended up being much more generous with her praise than initially. That was until the last day she took portraits of each student, and by her insistence, we had to pose with a Hairless Mexican Dog she loved. I said I did not know how to hold a dog, I only knew how to cradle babies, and she told me, “Then hold him like a baby.” I did, and in a second, that not-so-good-looking dog was so comfortable in my arms that she actually became jealous. She was that eccentric! When she was about to photograph me, I hesitated to smile, something apparently I always do. But I remembered at the time she said exactly what the man on the radio was saying almost fifteen years later, “we don’t show teeth because they are the most aggressive part of the body.”
Some of my photographs from that trip
I have to admit that when I started painting again a few years later, I realized smiles were rarely part of the equation. How do you ask a model to keep smiling throughout a pose? A painting or drawing of a smile looks frozen in time rather than a natural gesture, something the person looking back from the paper or canvas could not do for a long time. That is when I understood that smiles, as beautiful as they are, are supposed to be ephemeral.
Even in their fleeting nature, I still value smiles with a higher sense of respect and practically as an identity symbol. No, I am not always happy, but I believe in the power of smiles to change any mood. They are like powerful mantras that provoke change in attitude, increase our serotonin, change our relationships, and are as contagious as a flu strand on a long flight. Smiles are free; just like yawns, they multiply when we give them away. Just like frowns, they imprint their marks on our faces, but only one of the two makes us happier. There are smiles like shields that intend to hide sad souls, and there are smiles that act as the best antidote to grief. In fact, if there are two things that shatter my trust in someone, they are a lack of eye contact and the absence of a smile.
“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love”
— Mother Theresa
If smiles are a sign of aggression, I am not sure. Maybe it is my romantic nature, but I rather think of smiles as the prelude of a kiss, the beginning of a sweet word or an invitation to say “hello.” It is certainly true that a smile can only be captured in a fraction of a second, as in a photograph. Then let’s make sure that we have a thousand moments each day when our lips curl up, our teeth come out, and our eyes sweeten, if not for what it is inside, at least for what we want the world around us to reflect. The world is certainly not black and white either, and not all dogs like to be cradled as babies, and not all teachers make us cry. But let’s keep looking for opportunities to smile big and bright that life is only a fraction of a second after all.