In Patrick Stewart’s memoir, “Making It So”, he mentioned some advice he received from Rod Steigler on how to act for Film and Television. “You must understand, Patrick, the camera photographs thoughts”.

Meaning that, while in stage acting you show your emotions through body movement, in film, the emphasis is on what is behind your eyes. The reason why actors take great still portraits is that when a camera is pointing at them, they are on, present, showing their emotions through their eyes.

Most of the time when we, as adults, have a camera pointed at us, we are thinking of a dozen other things than what we might want to express in that moment. For me, recently, it was usually something along the lines of, I hate my hair, my smile, my weight, but I will smile because I am being asked to. You can just imagine the results.

So the next time someone points a camera at you, think about it and then FEEL what you want to express. Be there, in that moment.