Weddingbee boards

There are two theories on why our great-grandparents weren't smiling in old photos. Neither of them are that they were unhappy! First, the cameras in our great-grandparents' day had a much longer exposure time (several seconds), not the fraction of a second we have now. So they didn't smile because it would have been nearly impossible to hold it perfectly still for that along and get a good print.

Also, in the earliest days of photography, it was a big deal to get your picture taken. It's not like every family owned a camera, so it was a serious occasion befitting a dignified expression. Also, it was not as culturally acceptable to "fake" a smile (or so the internet says).