Say Cheese - Shiny Happy People - Candid Portraits by Mark McAfee Brown

Happiness is contagious. Happiness can be an elusive, evanescent, elastic, fleeting, ever changing moving target. From an early age we are taught to “Kiss the joy as it flies by” as William Blake put it centuries ago. By kissing that joy he concluded that we could then “Live in eternity’s sunrise.”

As the Dali Lama wrote: “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Americans have been chasing those elusive, positive national, personal and political goals for almost 250 years now.

Happiness in a broad sense encompasses flourishing, prosperity, thriving and well being. This book is a compendium of moments of joy and happiness; punctuated by smiles and laughter.