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**Nuwen** · November 28th 17, 05:16 PM posted to rec.photo.digital,alt.photography

PeterN writes:

On 11/27/2017 10:03 AM, wrote:

snip

If you've seen those old time B&W pictures from the 1800s. you'll notice
that no one smiled and never showed their teeth. I dont know if this is
true, but I was told by someone who seems to know history, that the
reason they did not smile was because many of them lacked teeth, or had
bad looking teeth. Considering the lack of dentistry back then, this
could have likely been true for particularly older people.

My theory is:
Bad teeth make if difficult to chew. That's why barbecue, a method of
making meat tender, became so popular.

Old lenses were very 'slow' (pick up a camera from even the 1930s,
you'll find they often didn't go any faster than say f/5.6).

Old photographic processes weren't particularly fast ("high ISO")
either.

If you're sitting for a photo in natural light, and the lens is slow,
and the medium is slow, you may have to sit for 30 seconds. I, for one,
cannot maintain a good smile for 30 seconds when I'm posing for a
picture. It's a lot easier to sit stone-faced.

nuwen