Have you ever wondered why our parents and grandparents never smiled in their childhood photos?
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CreativityTranscript
00:00This is how our parents and grandparents pose for a photograph.
00:03And this is how millennials, including me, pose when someone clicks a picture of us.
00:08We've all seen those sober and serious expressions in old family albums.
00:16But it wasn't just limited to candid photos.
00:19Even those taken during celebrations, like a wedding, contain zero emotion.
00:24When photography first became popular, it was simply a way to capture a person as they
00:29were and used for documenting a person's life.
00:32And long lens exposure times meant that people had to hold their pose for several minutes
00:37and opted for neutral expression.
00:39In fact, smiles in photographs were considered childish or even wicked.
00:44It was when American company, the Eastman Kodak, wanted to boost photography among the
00:49middle class that things took a turn.
00:51They held the monopoly for film and camera equipment and put up a series of ads marketing
00:56photos as a way to capture happy moments with family and friends.
01:00The campaign was widely successful and one of the many reasons why people were now smiling
01:05in photographs and looked like they were having a good time.