Let’s check the archives.
From the Orange County Archives: Walt Disney shows Disneyland plans to Orange County officials, December 1954.
The men in the front row (left to right) are Anaheim Mayor Charles Pearson, Orange County Supervisor Willis Warner, Walt Disney, Supervisor Willard Smith, and Orange County Planning Commission Chairman Dr. W. L. Bigham. The photo was taken at Disney Studios in Burbank. Photo courtesy the Orange County Archives’ Willard Smith Collection.
Newspaper and public relations photography relied heavily on posed images such as this one, through most of the 20th century. Cameras often were bulky. For a good image, film was slow, with a lot of light needed. Public groups often were taken out of an office or auditorium and posed in the sun, as here, just to get enough light.
By the end of the 1950s, faster films and smaller cameras encouraged more spontaneous photos of events. Especially after the Kennedy presidential campaign hired a photographer to take candid shots, which showed up everywhere, candid photos started to take over newspapers.
Posing these photographs was an art itself, an art mostly lost these days.
These posed photographs still beat most selfies.
More:
- Early History of Disneyland in Pictures, slideshow at the Orange County Register; that site suggests an alternative caption for the photo above:
July 21, 1954 – Race against time
Walt Disney visited Anaheim often to oversee every detail of the construction. On July 21, 1954, the park held its official groundbreaking – starting a race against time to build Disneyland in one year. Shown here, Anaheim Mayor Charles Pearson, left, with O.C. Supervisor William Warner, Walt Disney, O.C. Supervisor Willard Smith and O.C. Planning Commission Chair W.L. Bigham look at plans for what would soon be called The Happiest Place on Earth.REGISTER ARCHIVE PHOTO, TEXT BY TOM BERG, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Posted by Ed Darrell 
