Building girls' confidence with one cue for photos: You don't have to smile

When you stand in front of Brooke Light to have a picture taken, there's one thing she'll never make you do —smile.

The North Carolina photographer is trying to boost kids' confidence, especially girls, by encouraging them to be themselves in front of the camera. With the simple instruction, "You don't have to smile," she's helping shift the way the young people she photographs see themselves.

"My view of photos of me definitely changed," said 13-year-old Kennedy Downs. "It made me feel better about myself and it's like, maybe I don't have to cover up my face to be pretty."

Kennedy says she's always disliked having photos taken. After being diagnosed a few years ago with Graves' disease, an autoimmune disorder, she tried to hide even more. Among the symptoms, the condition can cause the eyes to bulge and appear uneven.

"I have so many photos of me just trying to cover up one of my eyes so that they all looked even, that you couldn't tell," she said. Then over time, I just kind of would block my face and take a picture because I thought that looked better than showing my face."

Kennedy's also been bullied about it at school, saying she's even being compared to the iguana character with one glass eye, Miss Crawly, in the movie Sing. Kennedy's mom, Whitney Downs, says she's watched her teenage daughter struggle with self-esteem, often in silence.

"When you get in front of a camera, you're always told to say cheese, you know, and just smile. And if you're not smiling, you're doing it wrong," said Whitney. "We're certainly guilty of that in years previous when we've done our family portraits. Like, 'OK, smile!' And behind the scenes, we all just want to cry and get it over with."

This time around, Whitney wanted to try something different. She saw Brooke's work and ethos on Tiktok, where the photographer's "Moody Mini sessions" have gained hundreds of thousands of views, and booked a session.

"Almost every one of my girl photo shoots, it takes a minute," said Brooke. "It takes a minute for them to drop the performative expectation."

Brooke's main goal is to remind kids that they're enough, just the way they are. Come in your favorite PJs if you want. Hair in a messy bun. No glam squad necessary.

"I often have to remind them, 'Remember, we don't have to smile, we don't have to smile.' And then it's always that vibe shift when we hit that moment where they're like, 'Oh!' and they relax."

Watch the video below to see how this photog tries to capture kids in a more authentic way

Kennedy says she never realized how much she's told to smile, even when she's having a rough day, until she had the opportunity to forego it.

"Definitely, some of them (the photos) looked more sad, but I also like that because it's realistic," said Kennedy. "Everyone feels that way."

Her mom says she plans to enlarge Kennedy's favorites and put them up in their living room, "as a nice reminder 'you're beautiful, even if you're not dressed to the nines and smiling.'"

She also says it's changed the way she takes her own family snapshots; if one of her kids doesn't feel like smiling, she doesn't force them anymore.

Brooke says she hopes her approach sparks a larger conversation about the veiled and often unfair expectations placed on girls to conceal their true feelings, identity, or appearance.

"At the end of the day, we love a smiling, happy picture, but you're going to remember your kids in the hoodie that they never took off, and them being in moods and them looking off into space. And just being themselves," said Brooke. "That's the version of our kids that we remember."