I actually sometimes try to imagine long-ago times: people in full color, looking just as hot as now. You're right about all the reasons why photography wasn't as kind in its early days. (Although have you ever seen history's first photographic selfie? That dude looks hot!)

I think people also miss the fact that a lot of our sense of what people looked like centuries ago is warped by the fact that we didn't even have photography, and painting is an imperfect capture — not to mention that even a talented artist might sometimes intentionally skew someone's features to match whatever the trend of the day was.

Meanwhile, despite all the uproar about filters nowadays, I do think that the digital precision of our cameras sometimes presents an "inaccurate" view of how we're actually seen by each other with real eyes, in real life — in which case the softening of a digital filter can help. But this is pure conjecture...

Great piece, Sean.