People Never Smiled In Old Photographs - And Some Of The Reasons Are Seriously Dark - 0 views
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So why the long face? You’re not the only one to ask that question. It’s been on the minds of experts for a long time, and more than a few Google searches are dedicated to the subject. If those sullen stares hid something, they took their secrets to the grave.
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But sometimes things don’t stay buried. Historians have unearthed several clues that could provide an answer. And as you might expect from the peculiar attitudes of centuries past, they’re not all mundane. The topic of old photographs strays from the unusual to the disturbing. So grab your shovel, because we’re going to dig into the past.
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“selfie” to its word of the year in 2013. Well, while self portraits weren’t as common in older centuries, they did actually exist.
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Of course, Robert wasn’t smiling in his picture. It perhaps inspired a trend, and few people showed a grin in their photographs over the decades that followed. From portraits and family photos to wedding pictures, even the most joyous occasions were recorded with somber expressions. For the most part, anyway.
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What reasons could people possibly have to record their misery for future generations to gaze upon?
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One possibility for people looking grim is for the simple reason that they felt that way. The photography process scared them. But what could they possibly have to fear? Well, bear in mind that most people had probably never seen anything as technologically advanced as a photograph before. The whole process was probably terrifying...
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Photography was still in its infancy, and the science talk did nothing to introduce it to a wider audience. Take the rooms for example, which photographers called “operation rooms.” Sounds a bit too similar to surgery, doesn’t it? And they referred to the equipment as “instruments,” which has more scientific connotations. We’re not sure people were exactly put at ease, is the point.
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So the poor photography subjects perhaps didn’t know if they were going to get immortalized or atomized. They could’ve been in the dark about whether it would hurt or not. And what if they were literal subjects and even the photographers didn’t know what would happen? It was all a very worrying time for the models.
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Before there was photography, painting was the most effective medium for capturing a person’s likeness. And as long as early cameras took to take a picture, painting one took even longer. So for the same reasons, smiles were a no-no. It’s the reason Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa portrait is so debated.
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The model — one Elmer Ellsworth Masterman — asked, “What is the difference between posing for a photograph and posing for a painting?” It seems the commonality was ingrained into society. And if you couldn’t smile for art, photographs were no different. Plus, who was the common man or woman to argue with Jesus? Maybe we’re having fun with that last sentence