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Madame Tussaud’s Fire in 1925

An unsettling and captivating photograph of wax figures burnt and melted after the massive 1925 fire that destroyed Madame Tussaud’s wax museum in London.

Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum Fire

An eye-witness who lived opposite Madame Tussaud’s said in an interview that the fire was a wonderful spectacle. Strong red and golden flames leapt 50 feet from the roof of the building. The wax models could be distinctly heard sizzling.

Why did people not smile in old photographs?

 

Did you ever notice in older photos that nobody smiles?Charles_Darwin

It wasn’t because they were unhappy or grumpy, it was the process of having your photograph taken that dictated that it was not best to smile.

Older cameras required manual exposures and lots of light because there was no flash and exposures of photographs would take several minutes to hours.

Therefore the subject of the photo would have to hold the pose perfectly still for an uncomfortable amount of time, sometimes for up to 30 minutes.

Mark Twain once wrote, “A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.”