The New Yorker has a fantastic series of portraits taken of various world leaders by the photographer Platon (Hat tip to AFRICA IS A COUNTRY). It includes some very good photographs of African heads of state.
I've always wanted to see if there was a link between whether or not a head of state is smiling in his/her official photograph and the degree of political freedom in that country. My hypothesis is that it's usually a good sign if your head of state is smiling a lot. African leaders don't smile that often (Jacob Zuma, who's photo is included in the New Yorker piece, is a nice exception). If you check the last post, you'll see a very wooden Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo standing next to a beaming Barack Obama.
The only thing that has stopped me is the amount of time required to collect every single state photograph out there. Does anyone have any ideas for shortcuts?
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It's really an American thing to smile for pictures. It's not common in Afghanistan and from what I've seen, not common in Cameroon and other parts of west Africa.
Maybe the smiling African leader is sufficiently well versed in American culture to know this?