Say Cheese
We love this set of photographs from 1890, of a couple giggling between frames – mainly because of how rare it is to see ‘outtakes’ of historical photographs. Unlike today where advances in technology allow for tens of photos to be snapped in mere seconds (most of which are later deleted,), in the Victorian era and the dawn of portrait photography, each photo taken was precious. Not only are these photos incredibly rare, but just as rare is the Victorian portrait where someone is smiling at the camera!
In 1890 when this couple was captured, the camera itself took an exceptionally long time – sometimes as long as fifteen minutes, and holding a smile for that long would definitely be physically challenging! So instead, somber or unsmiling portraits were the mainstay of the day.