
The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture - larrys
http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/09/18/the-serious-and-the-smirk-the-smile-in-portraiture/
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sliverstorm
_With an ISO of about 1, it’s not uncommon for exposure times to fall in the
5-10 second range, even in broad day light. Smiling is not recommended for
these long exposure times._

\-- Fernando Ramirez, _Making tintypes_

[http://nondo.net/blog/?p=486](http://nondo.net/blog/?p=486)

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jeremyjh
Yes that was my guess upon reading the headline. I was surprised they did not
even mention this.

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azernik
It's mentioned, just not in the context of early photography:

    
    
      When a camera is produced and we are asked to smile, we
      perform gamely. But should the process take too long, it
      takes only a fraction of a moment for our smiles to turn
      into uncomfortable grimaces. What was voluntary a moment
      ago immediately becomes intolerable. A smile is like a
      blush – it is a response, not an expression per se, and
      so it can neither be easily maintained nor easily
      recorded.

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MrJagil
This is close to blogspam. I think the source article is better:
[http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/09/18/the-serious-and-
the...](http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/09/18/the-serious-and-the-smirk-
the-smile-in-portraiture/)

~~~
potatolicious
Petapixel is all blogspam, they appropriate a _lot_ from their sources,
including rehosting photographs they don't have the rights to. The amount of
content they take from their sources seems to go well beyond the typical
"quote and link" blog format.

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hcarvalhoalves
> By the 17th century in Europe it was a well-established fact that the only
> people who smiled broadly, in life and in art, were the poor, the lewd, the
> drunk, the innocent, and the entertainment.

Not sure this explains it all. Maybe later not smiling got established as the
style of portraiture of high class because the high class was the only to have
portraits in the first place, but doesn't explain why they didn't smiled in
the early days.

The best explanation I heard about this was technical: old photos had long
exposure, and holding a perfect smile for long is tiring.

~~~
ginko
Take a look the portrait paintings here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_painting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_painting)

Barely any smiles either. And paintings don't have the long exposure time of
photographs. Sure, you would have to pose for an extended amount of time, but
a talented painter could apply any facial expression he chooses from a quick
sketch.

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beat
In modern (as opposed to old) photography, smiling is often forced and
awkward. As a serious photographer, I don't like posed photos at all, except
from people who are comfortable and expressive while modeling. For most
people, I prefer candids. And in my candid work (which isn't necessarily
representative of the world at large), people tend to either look serious, or
be laughing. Smiling is less common.

~~~
stan_rogers
Thinking of your portrait subjects, even in the most formal portrait setting,
as "modelling" is starting at the wrong end. Personally, I'd like to see the
word _model_ eradicated from the ordinary photographer's vocabulary; we have
had the perfectly good _subject_ and _sitter_ to work with for longer than
we've had photography. A model is just that — a stand-in for a "real" person
(or persona). It's a job that people can be good or bad at, and when we think
of our "real people" subjects as models, we immediately expect too much of
them.

The root _portray_ in the word _portrait_ , on the other hand, is one we
should pay more attention to. As photographic portraitists, we don't have the
luxury of creating an expression that represents the essence of the subject
from a (relatively) long period of observation; we need to elicit and capture
a person's natural expression (sometimes one that fits a target portrayal)
under conditions that are anything _but_ natural. That's people skills, not
camera or lighting skills, and those skills can be learned. (If you want a
quick but not-so-cheap lesson in basic technique, it might be worth checking
out Peter Hurley's video _The Art Behind the Headshot_. As a photographic
technician, he's merely competent, but he's good at waking people up and
making them themselves.)

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beat
I agree that model work (and I don't have a problem with the colloquial
meaning of "model") is fundamentally different from formal portrait. But that
said, I do actual models and studio photography quite a bit.

Even when using models, I'm generally after some essential expression of
personality. The difference between a good model and an ordinary sitter is
that they can achieve direct expression directly and comfortably, and through
indirect means (such as playing a role or wearing a costume).

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bane
My in-laws are definitely not American (they're East Asian) and grew up as
young children at the tail end of a rather serious war which killed several
million.

My Father-in-law is quite genial and smiles quite often in person, never in a
photo. My mother-in-law usually doesn't smile in photos either (despite being
an incredibly warm person who smiles and laughs quite a bit), but she smiles
enough that there's a photographic record of her smiling exists.

But, I've never taken a photo of my father-in-law or even seen one where he is
smiling. In family portraits everybody has a nice warm smile, except for him.
He looks like he's attending a funeral.

It's funny because the photos of my mother-in-law, the ones where she's
smiling, seem to capture her personality much better than the ones where she
is not. And you'd never guess at the personality of my father-in-law from a
photo at all.

About 2/3s of people of my wife's generation generally smiles. And pretty much
100% of the next generation smiles.

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qwerty_asdf
I had always assumed that it was due to the long exposure times of early
photographic techniques such as the Daguerreotype.

Specifically, since photographic skill was in short supply, and people with
equipment had bad experiences with blurry faces when people couldn't maintain
their smiles long enough for the exposure, that a trend emerged advising
people not to smile.

Then, as this trend became firmly entrenched and everyone forgot the original
reason, an idea was collectively conjured that it simply wasn't "fashionable"
to smile in a photograph.

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Gravityloss
The question could be asked in another way: why do Americans smile so much in
photographs, compared to many other cultures? Right now.

This research seems quite insular.

~~~
chc
I've met a lot of people from a lot of different cultures, and all of them
tend to smile in photographs. Can you list a few where smiling in photos is
odd?

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lnanek2
I've heard some Americans that work with Russians comment that they actually
feel this way about smiling during the day at work. It's a sign that you are
an idiot or not taking things seriously or something.

~~~
seiji
Serious doesn't require being bleak, solemn does:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/paula_scher_gets_serious.html](http://www.ted.com/talks/paula_scher_gets_serious.html)

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JonnieCache
Does anyone else clearly see a cheeky smile on lincoln's face in 3/4 of those
photos?

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brudgers
Looking at the uncropped image (from the source link) of the "smirking
Lincoln", the smirk disappears [for me] and he simply looks relaxed.

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Lincoln_O-116...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abraham_Lincoln_O-116_by_Gardner,_1865.png)

In fact, after returning and looking at the cropped image, he no longer looks
like he is smirking at all. Maybe it's the power of suggestion in the article.

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AznHisoka
I don't like smiling at all in photos. It seems so fake, and unnatural. If
they do insist on me smiling, I smile as big as I can to the extent it looks
more scary than happy. "What? You wanted me to smile?!"

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bcoates
In what universe is having a big grin associated with being a humorist? The
people in the top half of photos look more _bored_ than serious, but Lincoln
and Twain with their set jaws, intense stare, slightly tilted/twisted head and
expressive, engaged faces look like they're about to say something either
deadly serious or seriously funny.

Those bottom half ones would all be great modern photos, I wish I could
capture people like that. Most of the subjects I photograph wind up looking
either confused or goofy.

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jpalioto
_A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning
to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.
"_

Adding this for posterity: I have such a huge stupid smile on my face to help
maintain my privacy.

