Sunset at Cannon Beach

New Journal 50 – The curse of the miserable face


I remember when I was a wee lad on the streets of Newcastle. I’d just finished delivering papers on a Sunday morning and I’d rewarded myself with two pots of yoghurt. I ate a lot of yoghurt as a kid – spent most of my paper salary on it, in fact. I was especially partial to strawberry, but black cherry usually hit the spot, too.

I was just leaving the shop with my yogurt when I decided I’d enjoy it on the contaminated field, or the ”contamy”, for short. It wasn’t really contaminated. We just called it that. Although, deep down, I had my suspicions. There were a lot of deformed, ugly people in my neighbourhood.

I was sitting on the grass near the car park, enjoying the sun and strawberry yogurt, wondering to myself what more a 10-year old boy could want in life. Just then, a fella walked past with a dog. He looked at me and said ‘Cheer up kid, it might never happen!’

Cheer up?! I was perfectly content, just about to start my second pot. It was then that I realised for the first time that I probably had a miserable face.

I’m a bloke of normal happiness, I’d say. I laugh a lot. Yet, at the same time, I’ve heard all of the ‘cheer up’ comments under the sun. The worse one is ‘Who died?’ I’ve had that a lot. I wanted to say something like ‘My grandma’ just to make them feel awful, but she was alive back then and I didn’t want to jinx her.

I see myself sometimes in the mirror when I’m just feeling that normal feeling that doesn’t have a name and doesn’t really feel of anything. You’re just neutral, I suppose. I feel like the word ‘lem’ describes it best. Sometimes when I’m lem, I see my face and notice my upside down smile and strange frown and understand why all my life I’ve been considered a miserable bugger. I’m not miserable – I just have an unfortunate face.

I was reminded of the face in Argentina when we were laughing and joking with some guests one evening. The receptionist joined in as it got later. Eventually, she turned to me and said ‘I was surprised that you were so happy and funny because your face is kind of like, you know, serious’.

I wonder how this face has affected my life.

In my last year at high school I was voted most likely to start a war. Was this because of the face?

I would like to be able to turn this frown upside down, but it’s genetic, I’m afraid. If you’ve got a miserable face, don’t worry, I feel your pain. Maybe we should start a website called miserableface.com, if it doesn’t already exist. I’m scared to type it in in case it’s some sort of weird fetish website.

Today’s Photo – Sunset at Cannon Beach

Using Luminance Masks, I blended two exposures. I decided that the original reflection wasn’t colourful, or impacting enough. I decided to flip the image and mask out certain areas to make it more natural. The slight mist was added later.

I’m actually going to create a full, free video workflow on how I created this image for anyone who follows me on facebook.

Before the Joys of Post-Processing