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RE: Wild Women of the West Part 2: Squirrel Tooth Alice

in #history6 years ago

Howdy tonight redheadpei! I was amazed that she lived so long so she had to have had good genes I think. As far as the no smiling in old photos goes this is what a Time magazine artcle says about that subject and I tend to agree.

"Experts say that the deeper reason for the lack of smiles early on is that photography took guidance from pre-existing customs in painting—an art form in which many found grins uncouth and inappropriate for portraiture. Though saints might be depicted with faint smiles, wider smiles were “associated with madness, lewdness, loudness, drunkenness, all sorts of states of being that were not particularly decorous,” says Trumble.

Accordingly, high-end studio photographers would create an elegant setting and direct the subject how to behave, producing the staid expressions which are so familiar in 19th century photographs. The images they created were formal and befitted the expense of paying to have a portrait made, especially when that portrait might be the only image of someone."