08/09/2026
Everyone turns up to a shoot worried about their smile. It's the wrong thing to worry about.
People don't read your face on its own. They read it together with your body, and the body goes first. There's research on this, your posture actually changes how someone reads your expression. Same smile, tense shoulders underneath it, and it stops looking warm. It looks like someone who wants the whole thing to be over.
So on a session I don't try to fix the smile. I settle the body. A shoulder here, a shift of weight there, small enough that you stop noticing, until the tension goes. Once the body's at ease, the face follows on its own.
This matters most for branding images, where your body is right there in the frame doing half the talking. Get it genuinely relaxed and the photos look like you. Force it and they look like a stock photo of a professional.
Worth knowing if your current photos never quite feel like you.
