Check this out: my great grandparents’ wedding in 1904. Those mustaches! My great great grandfather (seated) looking so much like Daniel Day Lewis! The sheer and utter joy spilling out of their faces!
I did a little research on the lack of smiles in Victorian-era photos, and what I assumed originally was a result of having to stand perfectly still for a photo turns out to be incorrect. Instead, smiling in a photo back then was viewed in the same way as today’s duckface: totally unacceptable.
“A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.” - Mark Twain