Smile in photos?

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Is it common for folks with AS to not smile in photos? As long as I can remember I was always being scolded for not smiling in photos being taken. Even now my wife will say "smile Keith!" Then I will attempt to force a fake smile, and I remember doing this my whole life.

Anyone here a natural smiler, you know, with the big teethy smile?

Every time i'm told to smile when getting my picture taken, I think to myself "I thought I WAS smiling"

YES, that is also something I have said both internally and verbally. Then they say, uh..no you're not!

I'm wondering if anybody can relate to my experience: I can smile naturally, as circumstances dictate, but cannot do so on command for a portrait or anything else. If I try, it doesn't look good at all, and I have found I look far better for portraits not smiling. The only pictures of me smiling that look decent are those shot extemporaneously.

I find it difficult to smile on command.
But I think that my 'natural expression', at least as a child, was smiling. I hated taking pictures at picture day and one year in kindergarten my favoutire teacher 'tricked me' to look into the camera (didn't know the photographer was there) and I have the biggest smile on my face in that picture.

When I know a photo is being taken I make a big teethy smile. If I do not have the teethy smile I think I am smiling but others do not. I have to make an effort in this as it does not come naturally.

I mostly don't smile in photos. I don't like to and I won't show my teeth when I smile because I have a chipped tooth.

I don't smile if I don't want to. If someone wants a picture of me smiling, then he or she should take a picture of me smiling. I ain't going fake smile or whatsoever. Don't even know how to do it.

I have a chipped tooth also, but mine is slightly chipped so that it's hardly noticeable. Aside from that, I don't always have the best teeth, so instead of showing my teeth when I smile in pictures, I do a closed-mouth smile which I am most comfortable with.

I do the closed mouth smile but I also avoid getting my picture taken whenever I can.

I think mine is noticeable. I chipped it when I fell going down a hill in first grade.

It depends on my mood.
When I'm happy I smile in photos, when I'm sad or just don't feel emotions I don't.

I have some pictures of myself from age 3 to age 6. In some of them I smiled showing my teeth, in others I smiled with my mouth closed, in others I didn't smile at all.

I remember that I didn't smile in my class photo of 2nd grade, I think it was because the teacher had placed me when I didn't want to be and I was not happy with that.

I still have my class photos of grades 7th and 8th. I smile in both, with my mouth closed.

I even smile without realizing I'm doing it, without a reason. I don't have a good control over my face. Once in 8th grade I was told that I smile and laugh when I shouldn't and don't do it when I should.

When I smile without realizing I was told that I smile showing my teeth and that my chipped tooth is quite visible. Whatever...

Also, I can't fake smiles. When I tried once people told me I was really scary and looked like a psychopath. Now that I know that I force smiles only when I want to scare people.

Last edited by chlov on 09 Jul 2013, 7:28 am, edited 4 times in total.

The things have happened to me. I think I'm smiling, but people tell me I'm not. Smiling seems unnatural unless it's spontaneous. I also remember several times in my life where my father got mad at me for having "a face". He told me to get that look off my face and I had no idea what he was talking about. I think that has happened twice.

I'm smiling in 99% of the photos taking of me, probably because I'm a smiler anyway -- it just comes naturally to me (although, due to current problems with depression, not so much). But I DETEST having my picture taken. I feel like an idiot standing there with a fake smile. I hate all but one of my school pictures. The VERY few photos I do like are the ones where the smile is natural -- I'm in a particularly good mood (a rare event) or clowning around.

I hate smiling, I look weird when I smile.

I never smile in photos. At first it never occurred to me to smile. I was then told to smile, and I attempted to. It was so bad my parents didn't buy school photos for a few years.

It kind of went something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSqMQc0xM0

One time when they were taking pictures in school they held something in front of my mouth when they took the picture. I can only assume it was to make it easier for them to edit in a smile later.