Mikal Gilmore, little brother of notorious executed mormon-killer Gary, and author of THIS excellent if grim memoir (as well as a lot of rather less excellent rock writing), says somewhere in the memoir, in wonder, that many of the photos of his childhood come wreathed in misleading grins — in fact he (and his brothers) had a horrible family life, but you would never know this from the pictures
anyway, i’ve been lookin through old family snapshots a lot lately, and notice a kind of opposite effect… my sister becky and i had a great childhood, but until about the age of eight she NEVER appears in a photo without a distinctly wary scowl — and photos of my mum at the same age (viz 0-8) show exactly the same scowl, though she had an idyllic chuldhood also. Meanwhile I had golden hair till the age of five or so.