When Joseph-Nicephore Niepce took the first photograph in 1828, his photographic plate required an exposure of eight hours. That exposure time was drastically reduced across the course of the nineteenth century, so that by the 1890s the Collodion process had cut exposure times to two or three seconds.
Nevertheless, a three second exposure meant that subjects had to stand very still to avoid being blurred, and holding a smile for that period was tricky. As a result, we have a tendency to see our Victorian ancestors as even more formal and stern than they might have been.
These pictures are drawn from the Flickr group “The Smiling Victorian” and show a perhaps surprising side to the people who’s “now” was a hundred years before our own.
Oaxaca
![fotojournalismus:
An Iraqi woman walked down a Baghdad street in a yellow haze from a heavy dust storm. The dust storm shut down the capital’s airport on Tuesday, May 22, 2012.
[Credit : Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4fsqqZjPZ1r44q44o1_1280.jpg)
An Iraqi woman walked down a Baghdad street in a yellow haze from a heavy dust storm. The dust storm shut down the capital’s airport on Tuesday, May 22, 2012.
[Credit : Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images]
Seagulls - Potomac River
Seagull - Water Front
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts - Potomac River.
photography by: http://ceciliasomewhere.tumblr.com/
Children being evacuated out of London during the outbreak of World War II, 1939.
William Vandivert
The road to the ballots is open…
Well… hopefully it is for everyone.
Victory is going to be easy for some, difficult for others. Cambodia legally is still a democracy. Fine. But what is at stake is how not to be arrogant towards the loser…
CAMBODIA. Phnom Penh. 18/05/2012: First election campaign parades in Phnom Penh.
Kasia Bielska - It’s Now Or Never
This won the documentary photography: contemporary subjects award at the Sony World Photography Awards. While the theme of loss of innocence of models in the heightened and bizarre world of the fashion industry is a well-worn one - verging on cliche - there’s something incredibly striking about these photos. Kasia Bielska worked (works?) at a modelling agency and noted that when it came time to sign contracts, increasingly she would have to say “time to call your mother”, because the model was still a child. Beyond that, the photos capture the somewhat disconcerting trend of the almost tacit approval of ephebophilia in the fashion industry (and I include boys in that too, as a consequence of Slimane’s so-called ‘new look’).
(Source: firstfloormetaphor)
![fotojournalismus:
A damaged old tower is seen after an earthquake in Finale Emilia, Italy May 20, 2012. A strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of northern Italy early on Sunday, killing at least three people and causing serious damage to the area’s cultural heritage. The epicentre of the 6.0 magnitude quake, the strongest to hit Italy in three years, was in the plains near Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of the Po River Valley.
[Credit : Giorgio Benvenuti/Reuters]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4drq4WrEz1r44q44o1_1280.jpg)
A damaged old tower is seen after an earthquake in Finale Emilia, Italy May 20, 2012. A strong earthquake rocked a large swathe of northern Italy early on Sunday, killing at least three people and causing serious damage to the area’s cultural heritage. The epicentre of the 6.0 magnitude quake, the strongest to hit Italy in three years, was in the plains near Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of the Po River Valley.
[Credit : Giorgio Benvenuti/Reuters]
An Odd Couple by Drifter Manifesto.
Army Patrol, Northern Ireland (1971) by Clive Limpkin
Puerto Escondido - Oaxaca
Muelle - Isla Mujeres
Tulum
Cancún en Invierno
