Let the photograph hold an ordinary expression without demanding a performance of happiness.

Photographs get asked to certify happiness, which is why so many of them look staged. The instruction to smile interrupts whatever was actually happening, and the resulting image records the instruction rather than the moment. An ordinary face, caught mid thought, usually turns out to be the one people return to years later.

Take some pictures this week without announcing them, and keep the ones where nobody is performing. Let a child look serious. Later, notice which images still feel like the day and which feel like an obligation being met.