請容許我先原文抄錄:

There were not many smiling people in my pictures. I've never asked anyone to smile. Almost never.....Where did "smile for camera" come from? It's a tic. A way of directing attention from the camera.....The smile is a component of family pictures. Mothers don't want to see their children looking unhappy. My mother would hire a photographer to make a family portrait and he would inevitably ask us all to smile. They were canned smile. Forced. In the fifties, everything was supposed to be OK, although half the time it wasn't OK. It took me years to understand that I equated asking someone to smile with asking them to do somthing false.

 -- "At Work", Annie Leibovitz

或許,九成九少年人都犯過類似的錯誤 -- 把自身的苦惱放得太大,對人世間的種種不幸看得太輕。所以不想笑,不喜歡笑,因為在他小小的世界裡,沒有事情值得笑,那怕父母已經盡力給他最好的。

曾經極度討厭上鏡(雖然現在也不見得很喜歡,婚後三個月不到,我已經把結婚照整套收在床下底),其一原因是不快樂,更曾因不肯對鏡頭笑而被阿媽賞了幾記耳光。今天,我大抵明白她的憤怒 "Mothers don't want to see their children looking unhappy." 當年只懂恥笑她努力維繫那有點破碎的家,但從沒有想過,憂愁的孩子是對母親最大的懲罰。

"In the fifties, everything was supposed to be OK, although half the time it wasn't OK." 何只the fifties? 生活中從來任何時候都是not ok的多,ok的少,那怕現在已經是廿一世紀。就是因為生活中的種種不如意,才能更令人欣賞拍全家福的快樂 。老人家會走,小朋友會大。齊齊整整的拍張照,好像很稀疏平常,只不過,人一走,便追不回了。

"My daughter Sarah has the most beautiful smile. When you see it occuring so naturally in children you hate to lost it. I crumbled inside one day when I saw Sarah fake a smile."

這篇短文給我上的人生一課就是 -- 在孩子眼中,母親做的事總是既麻煩又多餘。那怕偉大攝影師如Annie Leibovitz想為孩子拍張人像照,都只會得到一個敷衍的笑容。

小朋友,你知不知道媽媽收多少錢拍一張照片?