The "So, Do You Still Say "Say Cheese" When Taking A Photo?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Making a visit to the Landis Run Intermediate School in the Manheim Township School District in Lancaster County, PA to photograph a few club and music groups for their yearbook.  Have been doing so for the past four years after the school was first opened.  The school houses 5th and 6th grade students with ages ranging from perhaps 10 years old to thirteen years old.  Always a great bunch of students who still enjoy having their photograph taken for the yearbook.  I line up the group on the risers, make sure I can see every student and ... "Say Cheese."  Always works for this age group of students.  Usually get a big laugh from them which needless to say is the exact reason I say "Say Cheese."  When taking photos of Middle School students who are slightly older, it doesn't seem to work as well so I just say "Smile" and hope for the best.  So why do photographers say the phrase "Say Cheese" and when did it first start?  Well the reason to say it is to cause the lips to form into a smile with a slight bit of teeth showing.  As to when it first was used, no one seems to know.  Probably first used in 1943 as reported in the Big Spring Herald newspaper from Big Spring, Texas.  Also could be credited to U.S. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies who disclosed the formula of "Say Cheese" while having his own photograph taken while on the set of his "Mission to Moscow."  

Daguerrotypes that are part of my collection.  No smiles here.

Ambassador Davies credited a famous politician, thought to be Franklin D. Roosevelt for whom he served, with telling him to "Say Cheese" when having his photo taken.  I have never read any other accounts of having used the saying for the first time.  Certainly wasn't used in the mid-1840s when Daguerrotypes were the portraitures of the day.  

Louis Daguerre - Photo inventor

Showing your teeth usually wasn't done since the exposure time to take a photo was longer than today as well as the dental hygiene in the Victorian era wasn't the best and not many wanted to show their pearly whites.  The cost of a Daguerrotype photograph was expensive and the etiquette for formal studio photographs was to act "prim and proper" which meant don't smile.  But then in the late 1880s and early 1900s George Eastman founded Kodak and the use of film became common.  

Advertisement for the Brownie

The masses now had a chance to have their photograph taken with Kodak's $1.00 Brownie camera which claimed, "You push the button, we do the rest!"  So, it could be a good reason to think that smiling and "Say Cheese" may have started in the early 1900s.  Whenever, and for whatever reason, "Say Cheese" was first uttered doesn't really matter, since it still seems to work today, at least on certain age groups.  That is until it no longer is "cool" to "Say Cheese" when around your peers.  And, I should know!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.