I wrote a paper about this once. As the article points out, Victorians were very aware of the "portraiture" and "heirloom" aspects of photography and concerned that their likeness be preserved in ways that they hoped would give them dignity in the memory of later generations. That being said, they were fun-loving, even bawdy (if not by modern standards) folks. Check out what they did in photo booths (a later invention) when the pressure of portraiture was off!
Very interesting link! Thanks for sharing. Do you still have any bits of that paper lying around? I'd be interested in reading it if you wouldn't mind.
Sadly, it died along with an old external hard drive a few years ago. Not sure I'd want to share it though. It was mostly the ramblings of an enthusiastic but uninformed sophomore history major. However, I just looked and was able to find the book I used as my main secondary source: The Victorians: Photographic Portraits by Audrey Linkman. It's a pretty good book, as I recall, and far more interesting than my paper!
I wrote a paper about this once. As the article points out, Victorians were very aware of the "portraiture" and "heirloom" aspects of photography and concerned that their likeness be preserved in ways that they hoped would give them dignity in the memory of later generations. That being said, they were fun-loving, even bawdy (if not by modern standards) folks. Check out what they did in photo booths (a later invention) when the pressure of portraiture was off!
Very interesting link! Thanks for sharing. Do you still have any bits of that paper lying around? I'd be interested in reading it if you wouldn't mind.
Sadly, it died along with an old external hard drive a few years ago. Not sure I'd want to share it though. It was mostly the ramblings of an enthusiastic but uninformed sophomore history major. However, I just looked and was able to find the book I used as my main secondary source: The Victorians: Photographic Portraits by Audrey Linkman. It's a pretty good book, as I recall, and far more interesting than my paper!
Wow! Thanks for the link :)