Smiles

We may assign photographic smiles to four different classes, only one of which is pictorially tolerable.

First, there is what is known as the zizzy smile. I include no illustration of the pure type of the zizzy smile, but thousands of examples may be found in screen magazines and tooth-paste advertisements. It is joyless and violent—a veritable explosion of incisors and bicuspids.

Then there is the grudging smile. This is also too familiar to require demonstrating. It results when the photographer insists on a smile and the bedeviled subject finally yields to the extend of lifting an upper lip in a perfunctory grimace that does not conceal the resentment smoldering in the eyes.

Third, there is the solar-plexus smile.. Or, by analogy with that fine phrase “belly laugh,” it might be called the “belly smile”. This, unlike those described above, is a natural and spontaneous expression, a sudden overflowing of animal joy. (Figure 19.) With an ebullient model a smile of this sort is readily obtained. Unfortunately, although it is actually spontaneous and sincere, the excess and suddenness of this smile cause it to have a violent “zizzy” quality. The sense of restraint and control, so necessary to pictorial representation, is missing.

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January 29, 2006 1:04 PM

Delicacy

When thought, action, or animation is implied, it is generally demanded that the head be tipped. Note that the head is tipped in Figure 10 (Windblown), although the angle is full-face. The animation of the expression, the swing of the hair, all require that the head be tipped. If this picture is framed with the features vertical, it immediately becomes stiff and uncomfortable, and at the same time loses a certain feminine delicacy.

William Mortensen, The Model: A Book on the Problems of Posing (1937), p. 30

January 12, 2006 1:17 AM

The Spanish Main

The Spanish Main is a thorough-going example of the picture of explicit drama. It is just the sort of moment and just the sort of interpretation that one sees in movie stills. It is, to repeat the distinction made above, a picture of drama rather than a dramatic picture. The emotion is violent and thoroughly literal in its representation. There is little or no hint of any pantomimic quality. The violent contortions of the models stir in the beholder only a mild and condescending sort of interest. The action is of the frozen type that the candid camera secures. There is division of interest because action and reaction are presented simultaneously.

William Mortensen, The Model: A Book on the Problems of Posing (1937), p. 178

January 5, 2006 5:33 PM