We go to lengths to make babies smile. Bribe with food. Wave noise making toys. Make faces. Act like clowns. At one point, the Mom was holding the baby and the Dad was standing behind me, trying to get her to smile. The Mom says to the Dad: Sing to her! Sing twinkle twinkle little star! The Dad was extremely reluctant, even after more cajoling, and reassurance that there's nothing embarrassing about singing badly in front of a photographer (I have a camera, not video camera recording sound, after all). So I thought What The Heck and announced: OK, I'll sing!Singing while photographing is something I've never done before. It is different from waving a toy with my left hand while I photograph with my right. Both hands were available for camera control, yet I found that even this simple song made for a challenging multi-task. I couldn't remember the lyrics (How I wonder What you are? How you are? Where you are?) and when I paused to dig into long ago stored memory boxes, I couldn't concentrate on taking photos.
But it worked! She turned and smiled at me, a long lasting smile! The things we do for baby smiles.