Please
         Hold

Please Hold is a portrait series consisting of six individuals employed in customer service roles; professions where friendliness is not just encouraged but often required. Each subject was asked to hold a smile continuously for fifteen minutes before being photographed.

At first glance, the faces appear welcoming, approachable, even cheerful. But as the viewer lingers, unease sets in. Smiles slip into grimaces, warmth hardens into strain. Please Hold functions as both visual study and social commentary. It investigates how we regulate our facial expressions to meet expectations, and what happens when we stretch the moment just beyond comfort. The series is commenting on emotional labor; regulating one's emotions for a wage.  

The artificiality of the smile becomes a metaphor for the broader tension between internal emotion and external expectation. The tension between what is shown and what is felt is a dissonance familiar to anyone who has ever had to smile through something.