In the section on the 1948 election in Great Expectations: The United States, 1945 - 1974, James T. Patterson writes of Thomas Dewey's lack of charisma that
Even smiling seemed to come with difficulty. A photographer once said, "Smile, governor." "I thought I was," he responded.
I sympathize. I think that I do smile a fair bit, that my moods tend to be on the cheerful side. But anyone who wishes me to look glum can just point a camera at me. The photographs suggest that I am attempting to smile through discomfort or moderate pain. I don't know why, I have never looked back through old photographs to see whether this was always so, but it is so now. It's well I'm in a trade that does not put a premium on smiling.
Reports in British newspapers recently suggested that people judge the age of people who are smiling as a great deal higher than those who are not, so that's a comfort I suppose? I was once a bridesmaid with a child who didn't know how to smile. At least that's what she told the photographer. In all the wedding pictures she is visible with a face scrunched up as if she is going to be sick any minute.
ReplyDeleteI don't really mind, except that I may be letting down the photographers or those in the picture with me. I'm sorry for the girl and the rest of the wedding party. There is a considerable space between smiling and looking miserable.
DeleteA very Christmas to you both. Lucy also sends her love. On smiling, I suddenly remembered George Blake and Charles Wheeler's comment on him:
ReplyDeletehttps://zmkc.blogspot.com/2010/03/smiling-spy.html
Merry Christmas to all of you. Is Lucy still teaching at the choir school?
DeleteSmiling at breakfast is a bit much, indeed.