You both make excellent points which have caused me to rethink mine... As an editor of business magazines I have a fine stable of writers who have specialties and styles. They are, of course, different things. Style is a difficult thing in photography to define, and I DON'T WANT TO OPEN THAT BOX HERE!!!! Yipes.... In the case of style re. my writers I am not thinking of the peculiarities which reflect the uniqueness of personality, but rather a grouping by type. For example, some of my writers are technicians and regardless of what they write they will, sooner or later, become engineers. Others are story tellers and they will revel not in the detail but in the narrative.
I have a comic writer. Whatever he writes, at some point, and he cannot help himself, he will produce a line that will make you giggle or chortle or smack-out laugh. on the other hand I have a columnist who is a humorist. He will never make you giggle, chortle or whatever. But you will always finish his work rubbing your chin, muttering "Hmmmmm....", through a smile.
The thing above is happy. I like it that you've identified that. Yes.. .yes... you are right. I agree. So I guess when I wrote about humor and photography I was describing an umbrella that would cover both my comic writer and my humorist. And I guess what I note is that our medium has a "serious-bias" built in. No... no... a comic or a humorist can be quite serious. Maybe I mean that this medium has a "ponderous-bias" built in?
Is it the nature of the medium to deaden smiles? Is it, if not the opposite of, then at least a contradiction to... happiness? Photography can make you feel good (although that will rarely get you hung on a museum wall) but can it make you... happy? Of course it can. So why is it so rare?
I'm not talking here about the sentimental shot of charming child or snoozing pet. I'm wondering about the expression of the human condition in ways that communicate through our sense of joy. How frequently do we see unashamedly happy images? And why is it so infrequent?
