I’ll bet you never knew those things you put your face in for a photo opportunity had a name. Well now you do.  Some might sniff at them as naff interpretation, but anything that gets people engaging with heritage is a good thing in my book, such as here using archive photographs as inspiration.

The use of an image on a board that could be held up as a foreground below the chin was patented in 1874 by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. The photo stand-in board we know it today known predates this version, which Coolidge acknowledges in his patent. His patent and successful marketing of both versions did lead to him often being credited as the inventor, but that’s likely not to be true.