The following extract from Open University course A173 Start Writing Family History explains how old photographs can help you discover the lives of your ancestors.

When photography was invented in 1839 its first major commercial application was portraiture. The camera quickly mechanised the existing trade in hand-made likenesses. Prior to photography working people bought silhouettes, the middle classes purchased miniatures, usually water-colours on ivory, and the rich commissioned their portraits in oils.

By 1839 portrait painters had evolved a sophisticated rhetoric about the role and purpose of their work and the nature of their relationship with the sitter. Early photographers adopted this same rhetoric regardless of its suitability for portraits made using a machine. Both painter and photographer agreed that the fundamental purpose of the portrait was to idealise the sitter. This need to idealise affected every aspect of the photographic portrait including expression, pose, backdrops and accessories.

Expression

Victorian and Edwardian sitters consciously presented a formal, unsmiling expression to the camera. This was thought to project positive qualities such as calm self-control, proper self-respect, dignity and good breeding. Smiles and laughter carried connotations of levity and frivolity.

Pose

Poses, like expressions, were relatively formal and restrained. Sitters were encouraged to imitate poses that came naturally to the genteel and educated in Victorian Society. Their imitation by the less privileged was intended to suggest refinement and so assist in the idealisation process.

The way in which this family is grouped closely together in an ordered and balanced fashion conveys to the viewer an underlying sense of closeness, unity and harmony. These are, of course, ideal virtues which most families want to attain, but few achieve most of the time.

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Content last updated: 14/01/2005

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