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Life

11th Mar 2016

Here’s Why People Never Smiled In Old Photographs

This makes so much sense

Ellen Tannam

Did you ever notice that in very old photo portraits of people are always very serious looking?

They always seemed to have a stern or bored expression on their faces, and now we know why.

Spotted on Vox, a cool video explains why it seemed like nobody ever smiled in very early photography.

One reason was in the early days of portraiture, people took it very seriously, as previously portraits had been painted so were a sombre and time-consuming occasion.

However, the more pressing reason is that photography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a slow business.

The first photography process ever was called daguerreotype and things that moved (aka people) were blurred or not captured at all because of how long the process took.

This meant people has glum faces because it was an easier expression to hold for longer periods. We can see why, have you ever tried to hold a smile for longer than a few seconds? Ow.

 

Video via Vox/Lead Image via Wikipedia