A lot of the time, photographs are either taken at a beginning or at an end. High school yearbook portraits depict a strange moment where a major period of time has just ended and the next has yet to properly begin.
In this limbo, this vacuum of possibility and fear, students get their pictures taken. As a tradition, this has hardly changed since the invention of the camera—but when I found this collection of portraits in the 1901-1950 ‘Teenage’ folder in NYPL I was shocked to see how much the standard facial expression has changed.
![yearbook 3](https://www.teenagefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/yearbook-31-e1323046286642.jpeg)
Far from looking bored or greasy or inhibited by a mouthful of braces, these young men exude bright-eyed hope and ambition. They are dressed well, they’re all cleaned up and they look more or less at ease with their uncertain futures.
![yearbook 4](https://www.teenagefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/yearbook-4-e1323046354346.jpeg)
Perhaps they were just responding to instructions—”OK, give me a strong profile”—but I’d prefer to think they felt as positively about the world that awaited them as their softly lit faces would suggest.
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![photo-2](https://www.teenagefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/photo-2-1024x768.jpg)
The pictures collected here are from the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection, a room full of folders upon folders of pictures. The images are torn from books and magazines, mounted onto thick card stock and cataloged by subject.