The Adventures of Captain Anndor

Traveling through time and space, enjoying shenanigans, and hoping to one day farm genetically reverse engineered dinosaur-poultry.

Thu May 24
438 notes

Reblogged from braiker

idostuff:

nprfreshair:

braiker:

An utterly charming gallery of Victorians smiling

Happy Afternoon, Internet!

Some real talk from someone who does Victorian era photography

The dour Victorian is pretty much a lie. The fact of the matter is that portrait lenses at the time were ridiculously slow. I’m talking like 15 second to two minute exposures (although yr photographer was probably erring on the side of asshole if yr exposure was that long). I challenge y’all to hold a real looking smile in EXACTLY the same spot for 45 seconds. Now I challenge you to hold a very relaxed (ie somber) face for 45 seconds. Way easier. Also a lot of (and by a lot I mean like all of them unless yr photographer was a weirdo and dumb) sun lit collodion studios are lit by skylights. In attics. Hot non air conditioned Victorian attics. So imagine trying to hold a smile while you are dying of sweat in your three zillion pound wool dress waiting for some fruitcake to finish coating, sensitizing, exposing and processing the plate all while you sit there getting weird from the heady ether fumes hoping to god the first exposure came out right (collodion presents problems that are so various and stupid that even the most experienced photographers in the medium still run into problems CONSTANTLY) so that you can just you know get your head unstuck from the posing stand and get back to hitting orphans with your cane or whatever.

number two: Victorians and the drab clothing.

Okay, get this: see that lady’s dress up yonder? Yr all like, oh yes Stormy, what a nice white dress! BUT that dress might very well be neon fucking aqua or lime green, but that shit photographs white with collodion. And the hallmark big billowy black Victorian dress might actually be safety orange. No joke. Reds, oranges and pinks all photograph black with wet plate. Collodion (and daguerrotypes) are only sensitive to blue light.

Photo shit cray.