You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: How The Most Famous Texas Ranger Got His Start. Part 3
It's pretty clear from the family picture (that excludes Frank), that either they weren't very happy, or the old man Franklin told them, "If there's any smiling in this here photiegraph, I'll tan yer hides!" The seated brother looks like he was thinking about smiling, but then thought better of it!
Took a second look at Frank's pic and he's not smiling either. I think they had to stay still for a while back then for photos, and maybe smiling for so long was too difficult for them. Frank shows that holding a snarl was pretty easy though. LOL
lol! Very good points and very observant sir free-reign! None of Frank's photos showed him smiling, the ones I could find online anyway. But no one ever smiled in photos before the 1940's or so. Of all the thousands of photos from the 1800's that I've studied only one of them had the person smiling and that's this girl:
Amazing factoid on the lack of photographed smiles back then. The Indian girl looks very happy. I wonder if she had a nice life. Maybe she was part of a show and enjoyed her part in it. But her smile, (and her sparkling eyes), confirms she's genuinely happy at that moment and her smile wasn't forced.
Howdy today sir free-reign! Yes, I wonder what the circumstance was that made her break out in such a smile. I've read a couple of articles about why no one smiled in the photos from the 1800's. They were instructed by the photographers to be as regal and serious looking as they could because they wanted to preserve that image for future generations.. that was one major factor.
The other factor was that without modern dentistry most people had bad teeth!