Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for June 14, 2014

It’s because smilling wasn’t the in thing to do in photos at the time. It seems to have been a hold over from protraits, though it would also have to do with the time it took to actually have a photo taken. Rats idiotic idea doesn’t hold when you consider that folks were smiling in photos by the 1940s, which was LONG before the Super Bowl and Netflix (hey Rat, try a better way to get your movies).

What about Pizza Hut? Or condoms?

I can understand how Rat (and his hapless, witless disciple, Pig) might think that, because the Super Bowl and cheese puffs, and I suppose Netflix too, have become major institutions for joy in America. But Rat really needs to learn history. I bet he never even graduated from high school!

The theory I like is that in the very early photographs there was a real sense of danger from the flash explosion. Imagine standing just a few feet away from something you really didn’t understand, we’re very uncomfortable being around, it was pointing directly at you,and was about to explode in your face. Not a Kodak “happy smiley” moment!

Watterson is gone, again. You missed him.

I used to wonder why everyone in old photos wore only black and grey clothes.

The people in the pictures were told to hold their breath because of the chemicals use on the plates & the flash. Also, the picture wouldn’t turn out if they even flinched during the shot. That is one reason why George Eastman perfected the camera (well, at least until the digital age).

No, he was the star of Ferris Buhler’s Day Off.

Nope. Al wrong. Sitting for a portrait didn’t involve close exposure to chemicals. Even with wet plate, the chemicals were and had to be in a blacked out tent or room nearby, not in the sitting room. Nor was flash powder explosion much of a hazard. Besides, it wasn’t much used for portraits. Those were done in naturally lit studios and outdoors in front of drapes, a natural holdover from artists’ studios. Flash powder lighting was hard to predict or control and lacked dimension. Nor was it the long exposure times. Those times became reasonably short, and still people weren’t smiling..This is why it’s hard from the perspective of a distant cultural time to guess at such things. In the 19th century, a fixed smile was expected only on idiots and fools. The Puritan ethic was in full force. Anything we would recognize as fun or even amusing was a waste of valuable time and evidence of a defect in character. In the formal setting of a portrait sitting, a smile would have been totally out of place. So even children, if they even inclined to smile for it, were sharply corrected. Look at even 20th century home photographs of folks born well back into the 19th century. When the photograph is a set situation, they are aware of the permanence and do not often smile.

They don’t smile for the same reason serious people seldom were depicted smiling in painted portraits where a smile could easily be depicted without any real effort on the part of the sitter. They just would never allow themselves to look silly. Candid portraiture was in the future. Who do you see smiling in 19th century photos? The gang in the saloon. And even they mostly got serious for the camera.

And Starbucks and loafers….

But they did have beer. So why no smiling?

Because people didn’t have very good teeth?

My theory is they all had a rash due to no indoor plumbing or Charmin. You wouldn’t be smiling, either.

The truth is that pictures took a long time to take. A straight face was easier on the mouth than holding a smile for five mi utes.

It’s because film was so slow that it took several seconds, even minutes, to expose.

I’m getting sick of you pastis

I have a photo taken around 1912,, of Mom, approx. age eight, her mom and dad, and six siblings (two more born later). The grump of the family is scowling, and the lower part of mom’s face is blurry. Evidently, she always was a talker.

I have to agree with rat

Actually, they didn’t smile back then because nearly everyone had really bad teeth.

I rarely smile in my photos now.

It’s more natural.

xxx

If you look through enough pictures from the 1800’s, you can find people smiling, and many other silly expressions. Most people took photographs as seriously as church since it was something most would only do once or twice in a lifetime. You’ll also see a lot of crazy stuff like ghost mom’s, final portraits (posed corpses), headless shots (a popular fad of trick photography), tableaux (19th century cosplay), nudes of people who should never be naked, mock horror scenes, and just a whole host of abnormalities and freakishness.

I was about to call rat to task regarding the counter example of beer when I saw that you beat me to it.

Good one!

It’s seems to be going back these days- most people won’t smile anymore because they want to look like some sort of badass…………….

Having your photo taken used to be a big deal, so you had to take it seriously. Now there are cameras everywhere!