Its common knowledge that our Victorian ancestors were a stiff, stilted and unsmiling lot.

Common knowledge, but not true.



Certainly, that's the way almost everyone in photographs from the 1800s and early 1900s appear to us today, standing stock still in formal poses and formal clothes. But "appear" is the right word. Because what we are looking at is not Victorians, but photographs of Victorians. And there is a crucial difference.

Until the late 19th century, taking a photograph required, by modern standards, an inordinately long exposure time — too long for the subject to hold anything but the most rigid of poses. In other words, everyone had to freeze. A smile was too hard to hold, and too tricky to risk.

And it was a risk because, until the introduction of Kodak's Box Brownie in 1900, photography was still much the preserve of the professional, the artist and the enthusiast. Having one's photograph taken was not something one did lightly, if only for the expense.

As exposure time and cost went down, so did people's guards, but slowly. The vast majority of photographs of Victorians show stiff and unsmiling people. But it's the technological limitation we see, not the people.





