Taking a picture was not always that easy. I still remember the words used to prompt a smile for the best shot by a photographer. Just remembering the words takes me back in time and vividly replays the image of a person with a camera and a flash ready to take a picture of a group of young kids. Crouching on the floor covered by a black cloth and pointing to the flash of the camera and yelling the words, ‘Look at the birdie!’ the children laugh and pop goes the flash and the picture is captured in the camera. I was boggled for a long time as a child by one question: Why did people use a set of words before taking a picture? I sometimes considered them to be a ritual of photography. Something like ‘Shri Ganeshaya Namah’ before doing anything. Later, as I grew up, the phrases became self-explanatory. It was used to get the best picture. Indeed, the photographer did take much pain to ensure a good photo so he did not have to shoot again.
Long before the first photographs were taken, the Greek mathematicians, Aristotle and Euclid and the Chinese philosopher Mot Ti had described a pinhole camera in 4th and 5th century BC. Of course, then it was used just for viewing or drawing purposes. Then around 1000 AD, pinhole camera was invented. The first picture was taken in 1827 but it required eight hours of light exposure to create and after the image appeared it would soon fade away. Then in 1839, taking a black and white picture became a possibility.
Developing these pictures was still time consuming and very expensive but once developed, did not disappear. In 1935, color photographs became a reality. These were both expensive to develop and time consuming. Even now, photographers took plenty of time to get the perfect picture, especially those of children. Often, people had to spend ages lining and setting up a photo shoot. In the meantime, children often got bored waiting and ran away. Still, one would not be sure how the picture had come out. To see if the picture was the type you wanted it to be, you had to send the films away to the labs and wait for six months. Under such circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to catch children’s attention. This is where the use of the ‘smile phrases’ came in.
Then again, not all used the same phrases to catch one’s attention for the best picture. We in Nepal and in Western world might say ‘smile please’ or even ‘say cheese’, but other cultures use other words. Some of these phrases are even funny. In Bulgaria, they use a word that means ‘Cabbage’. In Brazil, they say ‘Look at the little bird’. Similarly, in China, the word used means ‘eggplant’. The variety does not stop here. In Denmark, they often use a phrase meaning ‘say orange’. In Germany, it is a word that means ‘spaghetti’. In Iran, they say ‘apple’ and in Korea it’s ‘kimchi’ in Korean.
I was boggled for a long time as a child by one question: Why did people use a set of words before taking a picture? I sometimes considered them to be a ritual of photography. Something like ‘Shri Ganeshaya Namah’ before doing anything.
In most Latin American countries, the phrase used is ‘say ´whiskey´. In Spain it’s ‘say potato’. In Sweden, they use a phrase that means ‘say omelet’ and in Thailand it’s everybody’s favorite, ‘pepsi’. The Czech people say to the children something that means ‘attention, a birdie will fly out’. The Greeks say something similar to draw the attention of kids. They say ‘watch for the little bird’. The most absurd one is from Estonia. They say ‘pea soup’ to get people to smile in photographs. These were all smile words used to draw attention for the best picture.
With the advent of the digital camera, taking good photos of children has become much easier. You don’t have to wait for six months to realize you had cut off heads and not had the sun behind you! So what do you do to get a good picture now? Just keep snapping!
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