Bitter-Looking American Indian Chiefs

HiDesertHal

HiDesertHal

Senior Member
Location
Southern California's High Mojave Desert
Of all the Photographs, Paintings, and Statues of the Great American Indian Chiefs, such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Tecumseh, Cochise, and others, I have not seen one image where they did not have glowering scowls on their faces.

If they had pride in their tribes, why didn't they show it?

Hal
 

Something to do with how long the lens was uncovered in those days ?
You had to stay perfectly still for a number of seconds to expose the glass plates.
 

HiDesertHal said:
Of all the Photographs, Paintings, and Statues of the Great American Indian Chiefs, such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Tecumseh, Cochise, and others, I have not seen one image where they did not have glowering scowls on their faces.

If they had pride in their tribes, why didn't they show it?

Hal
Click to expand...

I think it was the style
Back in the day
The locals may have been influenced

Here’sMcLoughlin

Serious
1Nh5GMm.jpg


Gleeful
aXenL0r.jpg



Delighted
clq0XyN.png


…and his wife Marge
(Posing as Johnathan Winters?)
du0LNsc.jpg


Possibly not considered party animals, but, man!
Lighten up some
 
Sort of on-topic, but not. I have read that some states don't allow smiling in driver's license photos. Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with this thread. :eek:nthego:
 
HiDesertHal said:
Of all the Photographs, Paintings, and Statues of the Great American Indian Chiefs, such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Tecumseh, Cochise, and others, I have not seen one image where they did not have glowering scowls on their faces.

If they had pride in their tribes, why didn't they show it?

Hal
Click to expand...
How would they show their pride—a big grin and making a thumbs up sign?
 
I don't have a single picture of my great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents where they are smiling. They all look as solemn and in some cases downright unhappy as if they were being marched off to their funerals. I think getting your picture taken was pretty damn serious business back then.
 
My guesses for lack of smile: lack of trust in the contraption (camera) and photograph who was undoubted a non Native America.

or

Poor dental hygiene. Who wants to smile with a mouthful of painful rotted teeth?
 
jujube said:
I don't have a single picture of my great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents where they are smiling. They all look as solemn and in some cases downright unhappy as if they were being marched off to their funerals. I think getting your picture taken was pretty damn serious business back then.
Click to expand...

Can you imagine holding a smile long enough for the long exposure times back then? You would come off looking like a fool because it would have turned fake-looking very quickly.

I've seen people online claim that many people back then had crazy eyes, but I think that was also caused by the exposure times.
 
I bet I would look worse than that if someone killed most of my people, took away everything I held dear, held me captive and then demanded that I get all dressed up so some stupid white guy could hide behind some weird-looking thing while he made me still absolutely still.
 
Isn't it true that back then it took a while for a camera to get a picture taken? Who could smile that long? :eek:

Oops, just read Smiling Jane's post. Great minds think alike. :cool:
 
Long ago someone told me that a studio portrait of a person was deliberately made without a smile. It was thought a grinning likeness hanging on the wall for years would begin to appear grotesque.

I looked this up and while that was true, other factors were even more important. Firstly, teeth. Bad teeth or lack of teeth was the biggest reason and as already stated; long exposure times.

http://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/

There were however, some exceptions:

silly1.jpg
silly.jpg
 

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