Why We Say “Cheese”: Producing the Smile in Snapshot Photography

This essay explores the history of the toothy smile as a standard expression in snapshots. An analysis of popular photo journals throughout the twentieth century suggests that Kodak played a leadership role in shaping the conceptualization and the cultural habits around photography at the time when the technology was becoming mass-consumed. The Eastman Corporation actively and innovatively used the idea of consumer happiness in its persuasion work, skillfully exploiting visual codee.

[1]  Harry Tipper.  The principles of advertising , 1925 .

[2]  How to make money with your camera , 1952 .

[3]  D. Macdonald.  A Theory of Mass Culture , 1953 .

[4]  T. Peterson.  Magazines in the twentieth century , 1957 .

[5]  M. Mcluhan.  Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man , 1964 .

[6]  The Inter-War Years , 1973 .

[7]  S. Ewen,et al.  Captains Of Consciousness Advertising And The Social Roots Of The Consumer Culture , 1978 .

[8]  Kelly Je,et al.  An assessment of the occlusion of the teeth of youths 12-17 years. , 1977 .

[9]  Brian Coe,et al.  The snapshot photograph: The rise of popular photography, 1888-1939 , 1977 .

[10]  J. E. Kelly,et al.  An assessment of the occlusion of the teeth of youths 12-17 years. , 1977, Vital and health statistics. Series 11, Data from the National Health Survey.

[11]  J. Hirsch.  Family Photographs: Content, Meaning and Effect , 1981 .

[12]  W. Ong,et al.  Orality and literacy : the technologizing of the word , 1982 .

[13]  William D. Taylor,et al.  Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word , 1984 .

[14]  Stephen R. Fox.  The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and its Creators , 1984 .

[15]  E. Eisenstein.  The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe , 1984 .

[16]  Advertising and the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 , 1986 .

[17]  Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 , 1986 .

[18]  F. Mitchell.  Behind the painted smile. , 1987, Nursing times.

[19]  Gen Doy.  Family snaps: the meaning of domestic photography , 1994 .

[20]  Elizabeth Brayer.  George Eastman: A Biography , 1996 .

[21]  Say Cheese! The Revolution in the Aesthetics of Smiles , 1998 .

[22]  Snapshots: The Photography of Everyday Life, 1888 to the Present , 1998 .

[23]  American Photography: A Century of Images , 1999 .

[24]  N. West.  Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia , 2000 .

[25]  T. J. Lears.  From Salvation To Self-Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture, 1880-1930 , 2000 .

[26]  Milestones in Health and Medicine , 2000 .

[27]  E. Jephcott,et al.  Dialectic of Enlightenment , 2002 .

[28]  A brief history of the smile , 2004 .

[29]  Stuart Hall,et al.  The rediscovery of ‘ideology’: return of the repressed in media studies , 2005 .

[30]  You can do it. , 2007, RN.

[31]  Eastern promise , 2007, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[32]  S. Sontag.  On Photography , 2017, Illuminations.