“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” – Albert Einstein

aprilmaura.com as we know it is taking a turn of direction. For a few months now I have been thinking about doing a daunting project, but a project nevertheless that will take me in the direction of where I want to grow as a person.

10,000 Smiles Project

I was inspired by this street cleaner in Tianjin, China.

Taking the time to recognize him with a quick photo made him smile. His smile made me smile and brought happiness to me. I hope to give you the same effect with the 10,000 Smiles project. Smiles are the first characteristic we notice in an individual.

My vision for the year 2013 is to take 10,000 pictures of people smiling. Yes, smiles. If you know me, you would understand why; I love smiles and I love capturing people on film. This world has a lot of brokenness, but I want to shed light on the joy there is in it too. I love how the creator of the universe created so much intricate detail: curves, textures, colors, light; all of these attributes in one person’s face. We were designed to smile. I want to document people to be known and in the process I hope to create smiles while photographing them, which brings people to a happier state of mind.

I chose 10,000 photos because it take 10,000 hours to become a master of a skill and I want to become a master of photographing. I want to capture these fleeting vaporous moments of life.

You will notice as my project grows that most of my smile pictures will be of the Asian culture. This is the case because my husband and I moved from the States to China for a year teaching English and plan to do more traveling afterwards.

 The layout of attaining my goal of 10,000 Smiles:

833 pictures a month

208 pictures a week

42 pictures, 5 days a week

It is my hope that this project will bring you smiles from wherever you are on this mega earth. I plan on my viewers being able to vote each week on their 21 favorite photos. It is my goal by January 1st to have 1,000 of the best smiles picked out from the year. Take a rest from your busy life and join me on this quest for discovering the smiles in our everyday lives and enjoying the joyous moments in the 21st century.

“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love”- Mother Teresa

Grace and Peace,

April Maura