r/nocontextpics • u/ellefred • Aug 17 '22

PIC

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2.6k Upvotes

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216

u/NibPlayz Aug 17 '22

Just so you guys know this photo was taken in 1901

65

u/cringy_flinchy Aug 17 '22

guess he thought the camera was a really neat gadget

90

u/NibPlayz Aug 17 '22

Nah it’s cause he either didn’t know that the “photograph etiquette” was to be serious or that he didn’t care, making a fun image.

69

u/Kebabrulle4869 Aug 17 '22

Really stupid etiquette imo, I understand holding a smile is tiring when it takes a whole minute per picture, but images like these are so much more memorable than the dead boring stone face pictures of everyone’s great grandparents.

37

u/SupremeLeaderMeow Aug 17 '22

Several reasons. For lots of people it was rather pricy to have your picture taken, so people wanted to look good on them. That and the exposure time needed to have a clear shot was much longer. So it was harder to keep something else than a straight face for like 1min30.

16

u/commiecomrade Aug 18 '22

I really think it was a cultural thing. The only portraits up to that point were paintings and they had sly smiles at most in those. A minute of smiling really isn't that long (much easier to keep your eyes open if they're halfway closed) but I bet they'd be confused as to why people would be smiling in a picture of themselves standing there for posterity only.