Why isn't anyone smiling in those old photos? You know the one's from the 19th century and some from the early 20th century too? Since when have people tried to appear friendly, like they're having a good time and are happy when they strike a pose?
I thought about this while looking for ancestor photos to use on this blog.
I think I have some answers for you!
First of all, early photography required that people hold the pose for much longer than we do today when our cameras are capable of freezing the image even as we are moving. I think having to hold a pose caused a sort of rigidity and formality to the way people held themselves.
Don't laugh but I have one friend who holds himself this way when he takes pictures today. He has a whole wall of such ancestor photos and well, maybe it's cultural. There is NO SAYING CHEESE FOR THIS GUY! He looks like the FOUNDER OF A DYNASTY and twenty years older than he is, because he just doesn't smile for photos.
The main reason people didn't smile in those early days of photography has to do with - I'm feeling sure of this - because they were ashamed of their teeth! Dental work wasn't what it is today, and you know dentures weren't what they are today. No, even George Washington had some choppers carved of wood, some were made of bone, even whale bone. And he was a very privileged person.
PEOPLE, rich or poor, GENERALLY LOST A LOT OF TEETH. They pulled teeth that hurt. Every filling you have in your mouth would probably have been a pulled tooth a hundred or more years ago!
The first I see people in photos smiling is around the Gibson Girl era when commercial images of beautiful women used for selling products appeared in newspapers. The newspaper was affordable for the common, ordinary citizen, and I believe that when models and actresses were shown in the newspaper smiling in ads, society brides followed. I think women started smiling in photos before men did. By the 1920's, the Roaring Twenties, there was a change in attitude about what was decent behavior and attitude. By the Great Depression a great many people were depressed and in photographs it shows.
Long ago I heard that an American traveling to the Society Union as a tourist should never smile on their American passport, because to the Russians a smiling person was suspicious! Last week I heard that Russia is asking people not to smile in any passport or ID photo for another reason which is because their technology that scans these can not deal with a smile. Very interesting but is it true?
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