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Why do people always smile for the camera?

ET Bureau Nov 21, 2011, 04.00am IST

Why do people smile in photographs? Christina Kotchemidova, an American academic, has tried to answer this question and come up with some telling points. She found that before the mid-20th century, smiling was not the norm in studio photographs: indeed, all of us who've seen those carefully-posed pictures against painted backdrops taken even 40 years ago, notice how solemn everyone looks in the picture.

Even children, dressed in their best, look solemnly into cameras. The standard and aesthetics of studio photography were straight lifts from formal portrait painting, which it replaced. Only the very rich and powerful could afford to commission portraits of themselves and their loved ones.

With the advent of the first commercial cameras and photography studios, portraits became less costly and more people could afford to have a picture, or two, taken. Instead of telling subjects to say cheese, photographers in British studios apparently advised them to say prunes, which would lead to a tightening of the lips. Then, in the US, Kodak started making cameras which ordinary people could afford to buy.

It was a tough sell. Kodak had to circulate how-to books and tell people to just click the shutter, and its technicians would do the job of developing and processing the prints. The large circulation of magazines like Life ensured that many people saw photographs that were not posed studio shots. They realised that it was possible to look natural and happy while getting their pictures taken.

The era of smiling faces began with the democratisation of the camera and people's urge to keep memories of happy times like holidays captured on film. Technological change and its widespread absorption into our lives do bring a smile to everyone's face.