“For Gawd’s sake don’t smile”.
Posted by Big John on March 5, 2008
It’s been awhile since I had a look through the old family photo album, and as you know I like to show you my favourite pictures from time to time, and this is just one of them …
… It shows my mother (right) and … 
… Well that is the question … 
Do you ever look at family photographs and wonder who the other people are who appear in them ?
I don’t just mean the people in the background on the beach or beside you at the fair. I mean those who must have meant something to your relatives as they posed beside them in formal portraits or are included in ‘family’ groups.
I wonder who this unhappy looking young woman was ?
This picture was probably taken soon after World War I, so could the girl in black be mourning the loss of a loved one, or could it be that she and my mother were just obeying the photographer’s instructions not to smile ? Probably the latter as most people looked bloody miserable in the photographs from that era.
To me she has the air about her of an ‘Eliza Doolittle’. I wonder if she ever met …
… ‘er ‘enery ‘iggins ? 
March 5, 2008 at 10:52 pm
We’ve compared photos in the past, John, and always seem to wonder why the people in the pictures are so solemn. Could it be because they have to hold the pose for so long?
Your mother was a beauty.
March 9, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Oh, your mother was stunning.
And I agree…no smiling was done back then for photos. Ginnie could be right…took so darn long for the photographer to get things together before snapping, they couldn’t hold a smile that long…lol
Hmm, now you got my writer’s mind going…..Now “I” am wondering why she looked so sad…..there could be a million stories to tell for that one pose.
March 20, 2008 at 1:48 am
Your mother was incredibly beautiful.
About the gesture, I agree with Ginnie, exposition could be long and a smile is impossible to hold for so much time.