3 ms·

Not in all the really old photos I've seen. Lots of stern serious looks there. Smiles came later.

• brandonmenc 9y ago
  Hard to smile when you had to sit motionless for an hour while the image burned into the film back then.
  • romwell 9y ago
    That stopped being an issue very quickly. Also, in the beginning it was not unusual that the only portrait of a person was post-mortem - to preserve the memory (as in 100 years of solitude). Difficult to smile in that case. However, photographs were serious business for quite a while. You don't see people smiling on official portraits for the same reason. Imagine that portrait of Napoleon on a horse, but with a smile - doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Same for early photographs; they were expected to be solemn.