[Originally published on January 30, 2009.]
I told my friend Ken, who took this photograph a couple of days ago and labeled it “Visionary,”1 that I tended not to feel comfortable with photographs of myself in which I was not smiling. He commented that smiling is much over-rated in America. If you look at photographs from just a few generations ago, you’ll see no one smiling.
I wonder whether anyone has studied this. I think that a history of the smile in America could be fascinating. How did the smile come to be over-rated? When was the tipping point? Et cetera.
Says Ken:
“History of the Smile in America” would indeed be a fascinating study. My guess is that the smiling photo evolved in the ’30s and was locked in (think frozen grin) by the ’40s. I’d also guess that the Europeans didn’t follow until the ’60s. Our influence around the world is so great that we have actually affected the way 6 billion people want their faces recorded! Compared to that, the spread of English and the use of the dollar as currency are small potatoes.In any case, I’m grateful to Ken for helping me feel comfortable being photographed just the way I happen to be at the moment. Without the specially requested face (and its associated frame of mind2).
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1. February 3: The photo shown above replaced this one, which Ken labeled “Git Off My Propity”:
2. See the chapter, “Seven Seconds in the Bronx: 3. The Naked Face,” in Malcolm Gladwell’s 2005 book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.
| Copyright © 2009 & 2021 by Moristotle |
“Ken” is of course Ken Marks, of current Scratching Post fame. Note the sentence, “He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr,” in his staff bio in the sidebar.
ReplyDeleteI like the personality and title of the lower photo. I know me and my pooping dog would have run away from the daggers your expression is throwing. I think the one above is a very good profile picture. Shows someone who is always thinking things through.
ReplyDeleteI have to tell you (and Ken, who captioned the lower photo, and Roger, who applauded Ken’s caption and quoted a similar phrasing), your takes on the photo have more to do with your beholding eyes than with my state of mind when Ken clicked the aperture open. My expression in the photo is neutral, observant, in reserve.
DeleteI'm with Mike, I like the first one, and the caption is perfect. The second reminds me of an FB page I go on, "Get Off My Lawn!" especially for crusty curmudgeons like myself! If one goes just a bit farther back in the history of portraiture, one will see folks not only not smiling, but with their eyes closed as well-because they were deceased when the photos were taken. Before about 1920 it was common to pose the body of a loved one for a portrait. Creepy, in'nit?
ReplyDeleteIn my reply to Maik above, I tried to set him (and you and Ken) straight.
DeleteAnd those deceased subjects you mention were often posed sitting up, with living relatives seated beside them or standing behind!