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Why didn't people smile in old photos? For one, early cameras sometimes required a 15-minute exposure time, and holding a smile for that long was no small feat. But that's not the only reason Victorians donned dour expressions in photographs. Some avoided smiling because they were frightened by the process, since photo studios were often called "operation rooms." Others kept their mouths closed to hide their rotting teeth.
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0:00
Judging by the faces of people in photographs from the 19th century
0:04
you would probably assume that everyone alive back then was completely miserable
0:09
It raises the questions, why didn't anyone smile in old photographs? And when did those frowns finally turn upside down
0:17
Well, today we're going to take a look at why no one smiles in old photographs
0:22
Okay, time to, uh, scooch in a little closer to your cousin Jeffrey and hold that pose for some weird history
0:30
Despite what a modern person may assume based on the photographic record
0:39
people in the 19th century were indeed happy, even if there's little photographic evidence to prove it
0:44
According to Angus Trumbull, director of Australia's National Portrait Gallery, people in human history have smiled, laughed, and behaved more or less as they do today
0:53
Picks or it didn't happen, Angus. That people have smiled since the dawn of humanity seems fairly self-evident
1:00
But if that's the case, why didn't they smile in photographs for decades on end
1:04
As Trumbull explains, people have always smiled naturally and spontaneously in the private sphere
1:09
But photographs were seen as public rather than private. He contextualizes those overly serious expressions by pointing to 19th century cultural norms
1:18
What is radically different is public performance and public presentation. In other words, it was okay to smile when you were in private, away from the impressionable eyes of children
1:26
But when you were in public, you were expected to be serious. After all, you can't be seen smiling in public like some kind of lunatic
1:34
What would society think? In the 19th century, wide grins carried negative associations
1:39
This was because large smiles were considered a sign of mental instability
1:44
Basically, if you smiled too widely in public, everyone just assumed you were the Joker and gave you a wide berth
1:49
Even today, it's still considered a good rule of thumb to avoid anyone in a Joker t-shirt
1:53
In the Victorian era, a lack of control over your emotions and facial expressions broke decorum
1:59
which meant that those who wore smiles were pretty much automatically assumed to be drunken perverts
2:04
That's a pretty big assumption. Maybe it's true. The prejudice against wide smiles meant that while a demure, faint smile might ultimately appear in a portrait
2:12
big toothy grins almost never did, since drunken pervert wasn't the look most people were going for
2:18
Not yet, anyway. Even today, many people consider posing for a photograph
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to be somewhat unnerving. What do you do with your hands? What if you have something stuck in your teeth
2:34
And what if that celebrity photobombs you? It's a lot to think about
2:37
But in the 19th century many found posing for a picture even worse than unnerving It was downright frightening Professor Kristina Kuchumidova found that many early amateur portraits revealed their subjects
2:49
had a fear of the camera, and modern folks might feel the same way if we still used the same lingo
2:54
they did back then. For example, some of the first photography studios were called operation rooms
2:59
and photographers told subjects to pose before the instruments, because nothing really puts people
3:04
at ease like implying they're about to undergo surgery. Luckily, someone at the Eastman Kodak company realized that making people fear for their
3:11
lives right before snapping their picture was maybe not the best approach
3:15
The company made a concerted effort to address people's fear of the camera by promoting
3:19
photo studios as pleasant rather than frightening. An entry in one of Kodak's corporate journals recounts the experience of an anonymous employee
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who would tell people that going to a photography studio to get your picture taken was just
3:31
as enjoyable as going to a large drapery establishment. Were the old days that boring
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Or were draperies way cooler back then? He would then talk about the charming pictures which show the latest fashions in dress, about
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the new styles of finishing and mounting, toys for amusing children, in fact, anything pleasant
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all of the things that would eventually become hallmarks of countless photo studios in malls
3:53
around the world. The whole context in which people understood photography was also completely different
3:59
from how we perceive it today. Take, for example, Victorian death portraits
4:03
Weird History viewers who saw our videos on how Victorians spent their free time
4:07
or bizarre ways people from Victorian England mourned their dead, know that when a family member passed away, especially a young child
4:14
their living relatives would often pose with the body for a family portrait, giving them one final opportunity to throw up their signs
4:20
Photography allowed families to capture an image of their departed loved one, preserving their likeness
4:25
Before the advent of snapshots, most families had no images of their loved ones
4:29
but could commission a portrait after their passing. The association of photography and death
4:34
certainly contributed to the seriousness with which photos and the poses in them were treated
4:43
In the 19th century, dental hygiene was nothing like it is today
4:47
Prior to the invention of photography, that wasn't really a problem. Well, not from a portraiture point of view anyway
4:53
A portrait artist could easily hide rotten teeth with a brush of paint. But long before Photoshop and Instagram
4:58
made the ability to edit photos ubiquitous, it was extremely difficult to avoid the fact
5:04
that photography revealed a subject's rotting and missing teeth. Angus Trumbull, the aforementioned director
5:09
of Australia's National Portrait Gallery, and the guy with a pretty cool name, explains, people had lousy teeth
5:15
if they had teeth at all, which militated against opening your mouth in social settings
5:19
Makes sense. Nobody wants a family portrait in which everyone looks like a jack Luckily dental hygiene and hygiene improved over the years And with those improvements people began to get more comfortable showing off their pearly whites in photos
5:39
Much like a spin doctor's band photo, the dismal appearance of people in 19th century photographs wasn't accidental
5:45
In fact, the subjects were very specifically directed and took measures to accentuate their dourness
5:51
For example, you know how modern photographers will ask a subject to say cheese in order to stretch their mouth and make them smile
5:58
Well, in the 19th century, the exact opposite was desired. So photographers told their subjects to say prunes in order to keep their mouths small
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It also inspired general frowniness, because nobody likes thinking about prunes. A small mouth fit Victorian beauty standards, and a more demure expression followed proper etiquette at the time
6:18
During the 19th century, photographers often borrowed from the more established art form
6:23
of painting, and smiles were considered inappropriate for portraits. In fact, this unspoken rule against smiling was one of the reasons that Leonardo da Vinci's
6:32
Mona Lisa and her enigmatic smile was a sensation for centuries. What the hell is she so zany about
6:39
Paintings were meant to be serious records of someone significant enough to be remembered
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so few donned smiles for the occasion, preferring expressions of gravitas and importance
6:49
The same rules that govern painted portraits were applied in photographs. It would be quite a while before photography became common enough to allow for the kind of
6:57
cheeky experimentation that would lead to duck face. Speaking of duck face, in 1839, amateur
7:03
photographer Robert Cornelius took what is believed to be the first selfie in history
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It did not seem like a big deal at the time, but for many people today, it makes him as important
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as the people who discovered penicillin and electricity. Cornelius was interested in chemistry
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so he chose to take a self-portrait at his family's Philadelphia store. To capture the image, Cornelius removed the camera's lens cap
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ran into the frame, and stood motionless for one minute before returning to cover the lens
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Of course, Cornelius didn't smile in a selfie. Instead, he struck a serious pose
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perhaps because he hoped to prove that the daguerreotype process could take portraits
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Cornelius later went on to run one of the first photo studios in the country
7:40
Another thing to bear in mind is that in the early days of photography, exposure times
7:45
were lengthy. Subjects in these photographs often had to sit completely still for up to 15 minutes for
7:51
a single picture. Rather than trying to hold a smile for that long, most people chose a more serious expression
7:56
It's hard to blame them. Holding a smile nonstop for 15 minutes can definitely get uncomfortable and make you
8:03
appear deranged, like a clown prince of crime. The long exposure times also help explain why so many old photographs look blurry A single motion during the exposure could and often did result in a blurry picture lending it the appearance of being more haunted than it actually was
8:19
Every photograph taken back then was at least a little haunted, by default
8:23
People's unpleasant expressions in old-timey photographs were also driven by technological and cultural considerations
8:29
Living in an era where pretty much everyone has a high-quality camera built into their phone
8:33
it can be hard for us to wrap our heads around the fact that in the early years of photography
8:38
very few people had their pictures taken at all. Even fewer had those pictures taken at home
8:43
To get a photograph taken, your average Joe had to visit a photography studio
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which required backdrops and a formal setting, and all that could wind up being a little pricey
8:52
Even though photographs were cheaper than painted portraits, they were often prohibitively
8:56
expensive and still comparatively rare. So many people were only photographed once in their entire lives
9:03
As such, most people chose to treat the event with gravity. Because I guess if you're going to have one picture of yourself, you want to make sure
9:09
it looks like a time traveler's mug shot and not like you're actually enjoying the experience
9:14
Well, different strokes. Also, dropping a stack of bills on what was essentially a novelty purchase doesn't exactly
9:20
put you in a whistling mood. The growing number of grins in 20th century photographs
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came about partly because of Kodak. At the time, Kodak had a virtual monopoly on cameras and film
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so the company strongly influenced photography as a whole. Usually, a monopoly doesn't work out so well for the general public
9:44
I mean, has anyone ever actually finished that game? Professor Christina Kochomidova argues that Kodak wanted to associate photography
9:51
with travel and holidays. Linking photos with happy occasions in advertisements promoted the idea that people should smile in snapshots
9:59
and slowly the idea started to sink in. In a study of US high school yearbook photos
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published between 1905 and 2013, researchers found an increase in lip curvature across the decades
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While few students smiled in their 1905 yearbook photos, by the mid-20th century, smiles were larger and more common
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and women smiled more than men in every decade. The change in people's perception of photography also came about as photography became more
10:25
affordable in the early 20th century, thanks again to Kodak. In 1900, they released the Brownie camera, which only cost $1, or about $33 in today's money
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That's pretty cheap for a camera, but wildly overpriced for a Brownie. Instead of visiting a photography studio for a formal portrait photograph, people could
10:43
snap their own photographs at home. This led to a more relaxed process, which in turn led to even more smiles
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And presumably shortly thereafter, the first photo of a dog in a funny outfit
#Visual Art & Design
#Photographic & Digital Arts
#Anthropology