{"id":1458,"date":"2011-11-17T20:51:02","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T20:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1458"},"modified":"2011-11-17T20:51:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T20:51:02","slug":"elusive-monkey-smiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/elusive-monkey-smiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Elusive Monkey Smiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nGetting a good photograph of the Little Monkey beaming one of his face-splitting smiles is a task akin to capturing a yeti’s likeness. Partly this is because Mrs. Monkeyshines and I are prone to parental cooing, which renders one somewhat helpless (as the appearance of a mythical man-beast might do, albeit for different reasons). But assuming one has the presence of mind to grab the camera, there’s a chance that in doing so, the Little Monkey’s attention will be diverted from the source of the amusement, killing the moment. If the Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey technique for camera-getting is successfully applied, one then has to do similar in lining up the photo – if he clocks the camera, he’s liable to switch from smiling to stony-faced interest.\n<\/p>\n

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"Who do you think you're pointing that thing at?"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nI tend to eschew flash photography, as a rule, as I find it washes out pictures and destroys colour (us English are already pallid enough); in any case, if there’s one thing sure to startle a baby, it’s a bright flashing light. My camera is sufficiently smart to alter the exposure, shutter speed etc. in imperfect light, but this exacerbates the last major obstacle, which is that a baby’s mirth is often a whole-body experience. Smiles can be accompanied by a giddily bobbing head and flailing limbs, and although it is, of course, wonderful to see such unrestrained glee, it makes for a blurry picture.\n<\/p>\n

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Blurry LOLs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nBut we have, on average, 3.8 photographs for each day of the Little Monkey’s life – so eventually, probability kicks in, and that elusive yeti of a smile is committed to film (well, pixels), in addition to blissfully saccharine memories of Mrs. Monkeyshines and I. Marvellous. Even if he does look a bit like a ventriloquist’s dummy.\n<\/p>\n

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A rosy-cheeked cherub<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nAnd finally, a pictorial aside, contrasting the abominable snowman with the adorable Little Monkey.\n<\/p>\n

\n

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Adorable Monkey<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Abominable Snowman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting a good photograph of the Little Monkey beaming one of his face-splitting smiles is a task akin to capturing a yeti’s likeness. Partly this is because Mrs. Monkeyshines and I are prone to parental cooing, which renders one somewhat helpless (as the appearance of a mythical man-beast might do, albeit for different reasons). But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paternal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1458"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1470,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monkeyshines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}