# What's the earliest smile captured in a photograph? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592 "2015-01-12T02:54:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/1 "2015-01-12T02:54:13Z")
We all know that slow film speeds made folks hold a pose and therefore, they looked dour. As technology advanced, people could be more spontaneous. When, _exactly_ did this happen? ---
**Author:** ![from\_a\_to\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5fc32e/32.png) [@from\_a\_to\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/from_a_to_z)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/2 "2015-01-12T12:28:54Z")
If [this page](http://ghostofthetalkingcricket.squarespace.com/blogsusina/tag/photography) is accurate: No later than 1863, courtesy of Flora Rankin and Lewis Carroll. Per [this reddit article](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19d3kc/when_did_people_start_smiling_in_photographs/), technically feasible in the 1840s onward: > [@](#): > > With the Petzval lens, introduced in 1840 and adopted in that same decade, you could get sharp apertures of f/4 regularly, nearly twenty times faster than before. This brought daguerreotype exposures down from a few minutes to ~15-30 seconds, and then when the wet plate was introduced in the 1850s a daylight exposure was easy to make in just two or three seconds. How exact would you like? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/3 "2015-01-12T18:24:55Z")
My guess is that lack of smiling has nothing to do with technology of film. Sure, you had to sit still for a long time with early photography…but you can sit with a smile, if you want to. The real reason is that nobody wanted to. Nobody smiles in famous classic paintings, either. Smiling would have ruined a formal portrait. (Even the Mona Lisa’s famous smirk, is only barely recognizable as a smile by modern standards.) Portraits were serious business back in the early days of photography. Maybe because it was expensive. But I’m guessing that it was just a cultural thing—taking a photograph was a very formal event, and you were expected to treat it with dignity.Like going to church. Smiling or acting frivolously in front of a camera would probably have been viewed as rude and socially unacceptable. ---
**Author:** ![LiliesOfTheField](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c0e974/32.png) [@LiliesOfTheField](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiliesOfTheField)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/4 "2015-01-12T19:13:56Z")
We have no photos of my grandfather smiling, even though certainly in his day it was quite possible. He found it undignified, an attitude he learned from his father, who was around when smiling photos were rare. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/5 "2015-01-12T19:14:57Z")
Looking it up on Google Ngram, I find a reference to smiling in a photograph – the photographer actually encouraging it – in 1872. It’s in _The Religious Magazine and Monthly REview_, vol. 48 (1) pp. 86+, July 1872, in an article “Random Readings” by E.H. Sears. The Section “How we Look” on pp. 91-2 contains the exhortation. You can find it here: > **[The Religious Magazine and Monthly Review](https://books.google.com/books?id=W38QAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA92&dq=%22smiling%2Bphotograph%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_Ri0VMPqNM_isASf5IC4AQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22smiling%20photograph%22&f=false)** There are other examples from later in the 19th century, as well. I don’t find any entries for “smiling daguerreotype”, or variations thereof. But this cite, from 1890, speaks of a smiling face on a daguerreotype: > **[Godey's Lady's Book](https://books.google.com/books?id=rlU2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA470&dq=daguerrotype%2Bsmiling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CRu0VLTZJvXasASAsYHwCQ&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=daguerrotype%20smiling&f=false)** From Godey’s Magazine vol. 120, p. 470 (1890), story “The Spectre Castle” by Annie Maria Barnes. It’s fiction, so maybe nobody ever smiled on a daguerreotype. Here’s another reference to a smiling face in a daguerreotype. It’s fiction, too, and recent, at that: > **[Heroine Addiction](https://books.google.com/books?id=eED4TLruDNIC&pg=PT153&dq=daguerrotype%2Bsmiling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Gxy0VOzrHKvnsATv8oKICQ&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=daguerrotype%20smiling&f=false)** Here’s a reference to a smiling mother and child on a daguerreotype. Not fiction, for once, although we get to image, and no date (although presumably before about 1860, because who made daguerrotypes after that?): > **[Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price List 2004](https://books.google.com/books?id=t2XPSiAtyPgC&q=daguerrotype%2Bsmiling&dq=daguerrotype%2Bsmiling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gxy0VJS1J4_HsQSKs4DoCQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBjge)** So certainly by about 1860 there had been pictures of smiling people. edited to add: Here’s a poem froim 1857 that speaks of “Melianotypes with all the smiles and graces…” > **[The Hidden Muse](https://books.google.com/books?id=l1_ebd6-2JgC&pg=PA66&dq=daguerrotype%2Bsmiling&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gxy0VJS1J4_HsQSKs4DoCQ&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCTge#v=onepage&q=daguerrotype%20smiling&f=false)** > > The Hidden Muse is an anthology of 19th century poets from Carroll County, Maryland. It includes the work of Emma Alice Browne, a gifted contemporary of Emily Dickinson. It also includes the mysterious and equally gifted P.M. Deshong, a gothic writer... ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/6 "2015-01-14T16:15:17Z")
Lincoln isn’t especially solemn in these photos; he died in 1865: [http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/05/130205\_abraham\_lincoln\_ap\_605\_605.jpg](http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/05/130205_abraham_lincoln_ap_605_605.jpg) [http://dentistusa.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/abraham-lincoln.jpg](http://dentistusa.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/abraham-lincoln.jpg) [http://www.toomanymornings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Lincoln.jpg](http://www.toomanymornings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Lincoln.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-earliest-smile-captured-in-a-photograph/709592/7 "2015-01-14T22:20:19Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Lincoln isn’t especially solemn in these photos; he died in 1865: > > [http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/05/130205\_abraham\_lincoln\_ap\_605\_605.jpg](http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/05/130205_abraham_lincoln_ap_605_605.jpg) > [http://dentistusa.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/abraham-lincoln.jpg](http://dentistusa.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/abraham-lincoln.jpg) > [http://www.toomanymornings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Lincoln.jpg](http://www.toomanymornings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Lincoln.jpg) Honestly, for a guy who dealt with crippling depression all his life, they look absolutely giddy.