Something I noticed in people's pictures

[just_me]

Just an observation and a question. It seems that in a high percentage of the photos that the FL men use in avatars and pictures of yourselves in your hats have you looking grim. Why is that?

I'd think you'd be happy to be wearing such beautiful hats. Is it that you're trying to achieve a hard-boiled, noirish look?

There are a few guys who are always smiling, but the rest, not so much.

 

[Tomasso]

Maybe they're going for a certain look.

 

[carter]

Ask and you will receive.

Ok, I changed my avatar but it's not been a particularly good day. [huh]

 

[rumblefish]

This one isn't exactly beautiful.

<Maybe I'm seasick?

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Maybe they have issues...


I know I don't smile in pictures much, because it makes my eyes squinty and look more shut then -normal-

 

[Slim Portly]

My current one reminds me of an old joke:

A woman comes home to find her husband sitting on the couch wearing nothing but his underwear and a top hat. She says to him, "What the heck are you doing sitting there in your underwear? What if someone were to come visit?"

"No one ever visits us this time of day," he replied.

"But just imagine if someone came to visit! I'd be horrified!"

"Look, no one is coming to visit."

"Fine," she said. "Then why are you wearing the top hat?"

"Well... someone might come to vist..."

Thank you. I'm here all week.

 

[ScionPI2005]

The catch for me is that most of the pictures I use for my avatars are photos I've taken of myself. When I take pictures of myself, its very hard to get me to smile on command and it ends up looking quirky and fake. Really, the only time anyone can catch a real smile out of me is when I don't know I'm being photographed. It doesn't mean I'm necessarily trying to create the hard-boiled PI look (Bogey has had me beat on that for a very long time), I'm just partially camera shy I guess.

 

[ScionPI2005]

That made me laugh! lol :eusa_clap

My current one reminds me of an old joke:

A woman comes home to find her husband sitting on the couch wearing nothing but his underwear and a top hat. She says to him, "What the heck are you doing sitting there in your underwear? What if someone were to come visit?"

"No one ever visits us this time of day," he replied.

"But just imagine if someone came to visit! I'd be horrified!"

"Look, no one is coming to visit."

"Fine," she said. "Then why are you wearing the top hat?"

"Well... someone might come to vist..."

Thank you. I'm here all week.

 

[Fletch]

I'm a smiler. Not perpetually, but in pix, I usually try.

There's a grimness to masculinity at all these days, you know. Even just trying to look serious, we sometimes look hard, because seriousness anymore is at least partly a matter of sending signals.

Consider this photomontage I found of three generations of a Marine family.

They all look like ideal, recruiting-poster corporals. But the faces change in important ways as you go from WW2 grandpa, on the right, to Vietnam dad, on the left, to Gulf War son at center.

- Grandpa has an innocent Audie Murphy look. His hat is off his eyebrows, angled a little, with a shock of hair straying out. His mouth is a little open. He has no particular military bearing. Joe Citizen Marine, apple pie still on his breath, giving his all for civilization.
- Dad is the product of a different era and training, with what we recognize as military bearing. His hat is dead level, his face solemn and impassive as George Washington's. He's clean-cut, putting a noble face on in the service of cold war geopolitics.
- Son has the bearing, but that's not all. He radiates myth and menace. His hat covers his brow. His eyes glower. His mouth is tight. The war face. The good guy we believe in because he can be our bad guy. The man on the wall in a world of true believers and cynics and some who are both.

There is no telling who was the better Marine, who loved his country or his buddies more or was the toughest SOB or fought with the most distinction. Let's just say they're all equal that way.

Now ask yourself: What's changed? Why?

 

[just_me]

You guys cracked me up. I certainly smiled reading the responses. lol

Fletch - interesting photo and question. Part of it might be that we (all of us, not the royal "we" ) are more cynical than in the 40s. Also, maybe, the Marines are trying to convey the feeling that they are a more serious, tougher, more exclusive branch of the armed forces and they have to look more "serious." What's your thought on this?

 

[Fletch]

Well, they were almost done away with in the 50s, which changed the whole game as far as esprit de corps. They kind of closed ranks and redefined themselves, not just as the toughest SOBs on the block, but as a warrior class, part of society yet apart from it.

 

[Widebrim]

I don't know why...

I have found myself more serious in recent years, ergo my avatar (taken at a FL event).

 

[GWD]

I agree with the above, I can only smile when someone else takes the picture of me. I feel like a total idiot when I photograph myself and smiling only portrays the idiot.

 

[Widebrim]

Interesting points...

Well, they were almost done away with in the 50s, which changed the whole game as far as esprit de corps. They kind of closed ranks and redefined themselves, not just as the toughest SOBs on the block, but as a warrior class, part of society yet apart from it.

That may have something to do with it, although generally speaking most servicemen nowadays tend to put on serious mugs when taking formal shots. My Basic Training portrait reveals no smile, and there is only one grin in my platoon photo (the bearer of which was dishonorably discharged before he could graduate...). The armed forces, although now about 20% female, has come to take on a very macho attitude, revealed in formal photographs (informal ones tend to be more relaxed). And as for marines being the toughest ---s on the block (their own propaganda),fftopic: my Army father has related that during WWII, sailors would whomp on marines at the local bars, angry that the former would get all the credit for amphibious assaults, when it was the squids that brought them out to the beaches on LSTs.

Army Infantry All The Way!

 

[Fletch]

As a nonveteran, I was saying that to stay on the good side with my Marine pals.

It's my observation that the typical serviceperson photo doesn't just look serious, s/he looks like s/he's had something inserted someplace a civilian would not think it belonged. This is also true of police and firefighter portraits.

 

[Fletch]

As a nonveteran, I was saying that to stay on the good side with my Marine pals.

It's my observation that the typical serviceperson photo doesn't just look serious, s/he looks like s/he's had something inserted someplace a civilian would not think it belonged. This is also true of police and firefighter portraits.

 

[dhermann1]

I had an avatar for a while of me in my new brown Disney, taken by holding the camera up and glowering into it. The result of trying very hard to make my stay in frame was a hilariously glum expression. So ScionP is very much on the money.
When my Marine Corps "official portrait" was taken I was in about my 6th week of boot camp. We had all just come in from galumphing about 148 miles in the blazing sun. They gave us dress blues "dickies", just the collar and shoulders, and we picked an approximately correct fitting white cover and sat in front of the screen. The result was a picture of a lean, mean, pretty dust encrusted, and basically exhausted fighting machine. lol

 

[Brinybay]

Just an observation and a question. It seems that in a high percentage of the photos that the FL men use in avatars and pictures of yourselves in your hats have you looking grim. Why is that?

I'd think you'd be happy to be wearing such beautiful hats. Is it that you're trying to achieve a hard-boiled, noirish look?

There are a few guys who are always smiling, but the rest, not so much.

No dear, not trying to achieve a hard-boiled "look". I'm just one of those people who have trouble forcing a smile. I have to be genuinely tickled about something to put on a smile, or it just looks like I'm grimacing.

But just for you doll, I'll get out my camera, put on a hat, and listen to Blue Collar Comedy for a while, ok? (Don't worry, I'll wear something besides my hat, hahaha!!)

This is what a "forced" smile looks like:

 

[Not-Bogart13]

I find it difficult to smile for a posed picture in most cases, especially if I'm taking my own picture (which is usually the case). So it's kind of forced. The results are dreadful, so I don't get many smiles in my avatar pics.

 

[Undertow]

I don't smile. Ever. Simply not possible. My whole face would break. Absolutely too serious. I also speak in short, choppy sentences. As well.


But seriously, I can't smile on command. I'm often seen smiling, but apparently not in front of cameras.

If I look grim, it's probably because I'm just one grim guy.