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Jennifer Caminetti has the biggest twinkly smile in the world, and capturing it on a piece of paper wasn't easy. I drew and photographed while my assistant told her the hilarious account of her disastrous prom night, and Jennifer laughed 'til the tears came. Out of six rolls of film I got exactly one with her patent smile exactly right, and that one was blurry. Before the invention of photography, capturing such subtle and evanescent expressions of emotion was all but impossible, and artists tended to represent faces in serene repose. They certainly avoided twinkly smiles, and even the Laughing Cavalier looks like he had to hold that pose a good deal longer than was comfortable.* But the camera changed all that, and now we can catch and keep smiles and laughter like bottled sunlight, opening them from time to time to brighten a gloomy Sunday afternoon. * "The Laughing Cavalier" is a painting by Franz Hals (1580? - 1666), Dutch |