Dad Shares the Hilariously Ingenious Way He Gets His Kids to Smile for a Picture

Imagine that you're trying to take the perfect photo of your child, and they're supposed to flash their biggest, brightest, and most natural smile. But, more often than not, what ends up coming out on camera is something forced. Many of us have been there. Author and designer Adam Perry has developed his own trick when photographing his son, and the results speak for themselves. So, next time you want to take a good picture of your child, you might want to take a cue from Perry and shout “poop” before you snap away.

If imagining the scenario makes you giggle, that's actually why it works so well. Perry posted the evidence on Twitter, where side-by-side photos of his 5-year-old son show the effect of this toilet humor.

“He has the cutest ‘strained’ smile, almost like Hide the Pain Harold,” Perry shared. “My wife and I discovered a few years back that if we yelled out something funny and mildly inappropriate and were ready to snap right away, we could get something good out of it.”

Sadly, Perry also confessed that this hack stopped having an effect on his older son, who no longer finds “poop” so amusing. But, since tweeting his tip, he's heard from a lot of other people who have used his “poop” trick to get a great photo of their kid.

The portrait, which was taken on the first day of school, instantly went viral. Parents everywhere related to his struggle to get a good photo, and photographers applauded his ingenuity. Many also commented on the funny, and inappropriate, words that use to elicit smiles when it's picture time.

And, if you are interested in the logic behind how this works, psychologist Sam Gosling chimed in with an explanation. “Smiling on demand and smiling naturally happen via different neural pathways in the brain. In some people, one of these pathways is impaired. For your son, it's his smiling on-demand pathway. You tell him to smile, he can't.”

One dad discovered a hilarious way to get his son to smile naturally in a photo.

People chimed in with their own techniques for getting a good kid's portrait.

And a psychologist even explained why it's so hard to smile naturally on cue.

h/t: [PetaPixel]

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Jessica Stewart

Jessica Stewart is a Contributing Writer and Digital Media Specialist for My Modern Met, as well as a curator and art historian. Since 2020, she is also one of the co-hosts of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. She earned her MA in Renaissance Studies from University College London and now lives in Rome, Italy. She cultivated expertise in street art which led to the purchase of her photographic archive by the Treccani Italian Encyclopedia in 2014. When she’s not spending time with her three dogs, she also manages the studio of a successful street artist. In 2013, she authored the book 'Street Art Stories Roma' and most recently contributed to 'Crossroads: A Glimpse Into the Life of Alice Pasquini'. You can follow her adventures online at @romephotoblog.
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