There is a moment when a beautiful face becomes unforgettable. A woman is listening, her expression perfectly composed, and then someone says the one thing that makes her laugh. She lowers her head, tries to gather herself, and looks up with tears in her eyes. If you asked me which moment I would photograph, I would wait for her to look up.

I have always loved looking at faces. I notice the shape of the eyes, the line of a nose, the way a mouth settles when a person is thinking. I can admire those details for their own sake. A beautiful face gives me even more to enjoy once it moves. One raised eyebrow can make me laugh before the person attached to it has said a word.

Black beauty has so much variety that I could spend a lifetime writing about it and still have somebody left to describe. There is the woman with deep brown skin, a close-cropped head, and a profile you want to draw. There is the woman with golden-brown skin, freckles across her nose, and curls that insist on falling back into her eyes. Each gives you a different reason to stop and look.

What the Mirror Cannot Hold

A mirror can show me the shape of my lips and whether I put my earrings on straight. It can catch the light on my cheek when I turn toward the window. I enjoy those little things, especially when I’ve taken my time getting dressed. But there’s a look that comes over my face when somebody I love walks through the door, and I’ve never seen it for myself. By then, I’ve already turned away from the mirror. I’m looking at them.

The Faces That Made Me Love Beauty

When I think about where my love of beauty began, I think of the faces we linger over in family albums. I love the moment an older relative points to a young woman in a photograph and says, “That’s your grandmother,” as if the girl with the pretty eyes and the mischievous smile has been waiting all this time to be introduced. I’d want to know where she was going in that dress and who made her laugh just before the picture was taken. Carrie Mae Weems’s Family Pictures and Stories, which features her own family, makes me think about how much there is to discover in the faces closest to us.

The Grace in Our Features

I love a strong nose in profile, a full mouth wearing a deep red lipstick, and the way high cheekbones catch the afternoon light. I love the little gap in a smile you can recognize from halfway across the room. There is grace in the features that make a Black face distinctly its own. Sometimes it takes an especially good photograph to show you what everybody who loves you has been seeing for years. You look at it and think, I never knew my eyes looked like that when I laughed.

A Thousand Ways to Be Beautiful

Some days I want to look at a woman in a silk gown with her hair swept high and every detail just right. Other days it’s the woman in a white T-shirt with freckles across her cheeks and coils escaping her scarf who holds my attention. A handsome Black man with a silver beard can make me look twice for an entirely different reason than a young man with big brown eyes and a shy smile. That range is part of what I enjoy about Deborah Willis’s Posing Beauty. A formal portrait can sit in the same collection as a photograph from a barbershop or a prom, and each has its own way of making you want to stay a little longer.

When Beauty Has a Memory

An old photograph can make me remember a whole room. The woman in the picture is wearing the earrings she always wore when she dressed up, and suddenly I can imagine the sound they made when she turned her head. Someone else might notice how beautiful she was. I might notice that she was trying very hard to keep a straight face, because I remember who was standing beside the camera. The Smithsonian’s Everyday Beauty exhibition included family photographs, and I’m glad those pictures were given a place to be seen. Even the plainest snapshot can hold a detail somebody has been waiting years to remember.

I think of a handsome Black man who looks entirely serious until he smiles. A little crease appears beside his mouth, his eyes narrow, and suddenly you can imagine the boy he used to be. I love that moment in a man’s face. I especially love it when he’s holding a baby and trying to carry on a grown conversation while the baby has both hands in his beard.

Sometimes we see the people we love in somebody else’s face. You find a photograph of your father at seventeen and recognize the look your nephew gives you when he’s trying to get away with something. Then you have to call somebody into the room to see it, too. An old photograph can give a family something new to laugh about.

A family resemblance can take years to show itself. A woman may hear all her life that she favors her father, then one day catch her mother’s expression in the bathroom mirror while putting on lipstick. It might be the way she presses her lips together or tips her chin to check the color. She has looked in that mirror a thousand times, and today she pauses.

The Smithsonian’s Everyday Beauty exhibition included family photographs alongside portraits and films from its collection. I like thinking about the distance between a picture taken for the family and that same picture hanging in a museum. Somebody in the family might remember who was late that afternoon, who loaned out a jacket, or who kept moving just as the shutter clicked. I would happily stand beside that person and listen.

Deborah Willis’s Posing Beauty brings together photographs of Black men and women across more than a century, including pictures from proms and barbershops. Those everyday settings make me curious about the moments on either side of the picture. I want to see the young man after his haircut, when the barber turns the chair and gives him the hand mirror. There’s a particular satisfaction in that first look.

I have a soft spot for the effort people put into getting dressed for a photograph. A woman chooses the earrings she saves for special occasions. A man smooths the front of his jacket even though it was smooth the first time. They want to see themselves looking wonderful, and I understand that completely. I enjoy a beautiful gown, good lighting, and the pleasure of knowing the lipstick is exactly right.

I also love the face that comes out after the good picture has been taken. Somebody calls your name from the side of the room, and you turn before you remember there’s still a camera. Your shoulders drop and your smile changes. A photographer who keeps looking for another second might catch the expression your friends would recognize from across the street.

Hair can change the whole feeling of a face. Pull the curls up, and you see the line from the ear to the jaw. Let them fall forward, and your eye goes straight to the face framed inside them. I love a carefully sculpted updo, and I love the picture taken outdoors when the wind ruins all that careful planning and the woman starts laughing because she knows there’s nothing she can do about it.

Red lipstick deserves a moment of its own. I love watching a woman put it on and decide how she wants to wear it that day. A deep red can make the smallest smile seem a little mischievous. And when she leans in to kiss somebody on the cheek and leaves a print, I like to think that mark belongs in the picture, too.

Some of the most beautiful expressions are the ones we make while listening. Watch a woman when a child is telling her something that matters to him. She may lean closer as he searches for the right words, and her face changes the minute she understands. The child sees it, too. He takes a breath and finishes what he came to say.

In Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series, the artist photographs herself at the same table under a single overhead lamp as relationships and circumstances shift around her. I love that she gives one Black woman so much room to be a person. I can linger over the tilt of her head or the distance between her and whoever is sitting there and wonder what she’s thinking, the way I would if I were in the room.

There is a beauty I appreciate more as a face grows older. A woman smiles, and the lines around her eyes deepen. An older man laughs and his silver beard moves before the sound comes out. If the people in those pictures are mine, I want the little details left in. One day I may want to remember exactly how his eyes crinkled when he laughed.

Grief changes how we look at a photograph. When someone you love is gone, you can spend a long time looking at an ordinary picture of them. Their shirt collar is crooked. They’re halfway through a smile. You know the voice that would come out of that mouth if the picture could move, and for a second you can almost hear it.

Of course, the same face can be beautiful and tell you very little about what the person is feeling. Somebody can have a lovely smile and still be waiting for a private moment to cry. I think about that when I look at portraits. I can take pleasure in the image and still leave room for all the things the person in it gets to keep to herself.

When I say the soul has a face, I think about how often affection changes what I notice. A slightly crooked smile might be a small detail the first time I see it. After I’ve spent enough time with that person, I know the difference between the smile they give a stranger and the one they give me when I’ve said something outrageous. I look for that second smile. Sometimes I say something outrageous on purpose.

I thank the Most High for the variety in Black beauty. I love that two sisters can share the same eyes and look entirely different when they laugh. I love that a child can carry a grandfather’s features and make expressions that are entirely his own. A family can have a dozen beautiful faces around one table, and if you stay long enough, you’ll find something particular to love about every one.

If you ever take a photograph of somebody you love, keep the one they ask you to delete because they were laughing too hard. Keep the one where the wind got into her curls, and she reached for his hand. Years from now, when you come across it again, you might remember what he said to make her laugh. And there she’ll be, looking exactly like herself.

References

• Willis, D. (2009). Posing beauty: African American images from the 1890s to the present. W. W. Norton & Company. Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
• National Museum of African American History and Culture. (2016–2019). Everyday beauty: Photographs and films from the permanent collection [Exhibition]. Smithsonian Institution
• Weems, C. M. (1990, printed 2003). Kitchen table series [Photographic portfolio]. National Gallery of Art