Smile!

Well that was great fun. My face is now aching from scoring so high on the grin-o-meter.

I decided to take a break from bug photography today and follow Earthdreamer and do a smiley blip safari in celebration of International Day of Happiness. Well done to Disdatdudda for bringing the celebration to our attention.

The safari lasted only thirty minutes from first to last image, but I still had 75 images of jollification to sort through and I was back at my computer by 07:30am. I think I have discovered a new talent, the ability to make people smile, although they were probably laughing at me rather than with me, but what does that matter. What matters is that I made a lot of people smile, including myself and so fulfilled my end of the bargain.

First run through the editing, I managed to get the number down to 35 different people, all smiling. At this point I have to admit, I was choked - "Pull it together dave, you mushy fool'! At a rate of 70 smiles per hour, this is even easier than dragonflies and I could have kept going all day.

To be honest, all but half a dozen of these images would normally have ended up on my cutting room floor, but today I decided to leave the scissors in the draw and enter into the spirit of the occasion. For the blip, it was down to four images, but this one pipped it for me.

A smile is a fleeting moment and it is a blipping frenzy to capture it. I should have switched off RAW because the camera just could not keep up. Next year, it will be JPEGs and rapid fire at 6fps. Actually, rapid fire is a good way to bring out that smile as they realize how many shots I am taking.

I really hope that you take the time to view the slideshow and I challenge anyone to look through without grinning at least once.

Have a smiley day on me.

Dave