Post-Mortem Photography
In our times photographing dead people is creepy and nobody does it. However, in the Victorian era, it was common. The invention of photo camera allowed people to immortalize their former relatives. It was perfectly normal for those people, because in their times life wasn’t too long and they were conscious that death is a regular order of things. Photographs were considered a memento to remember the dead.
Photographs often showed dead children, since mortality in young age was common. Even simple sickness could lead to death. Before burial there were photos taken with families just to remember gone child.
Dead people were often showed as still alive - dressed, arranged as standing or sitting in a normal pose. It was a family set up with a deceased person just like he or she was still alive. Of course dead people wore makeup, but it often couldn’t cover swelling or wounds after a disease.
In some photos you can’t tell who is alive and who is dead. Imagine sitting near the dead person for some time (remember that in the past taking a photo lasted a few moments) just to take a perfect shot.
http://www.mdolla.com/2012/05/stiff-pose-victorian-postmortem.html
Nowadays post-mortem photography is not popular, but it’s still done for instance in Eastern Europe. However, it’s not as drastic as it was in the Victorian era.
You can see more photos from those times at http://www.mdolla.com/2012/05/stiff-pose-victorian-postmortem.html
I have to agree with you, it is creepy, strange and terrifying.
ReplyDeleteBack then taking photos wasn't so popular. Especially when the child was 3 months [first and last photo at the same time]. As you mentioned, it was different times, and people were also more used to seeing death.
But my question is: why it's still done? We've got so many photos from every stage of our lives. Some people placed on the graves of their loved ones, photos from 20 years ago. They want to remember a cheerful man having sixty years and not the old man chained to bed. It's dramatic but true.
Who nowadays, want to keep post-mortem photos of their beloved ones?
I don't understand why photographers took pictures of dead people. For buisness, or they see some art? I think that they tried to provoke controversy.They wanted to be noticed by people. For me it's terrible and frightening. Maybe above photos are acceptable.But imagine, that there are images of the Holocaust. No comment...
ReplyDeleteLike You said it is strange nowdays, but in past it was something normal. The subject is hard for me , so i dont have nothing to say about it maybe except that, I wouldn't take photo with someone who's dead
ReplyDeleteIt's a very interesting topic, however, very depressing. Probably such behavior in earlier times had some sense. Pictures weren't as popular and accessible as now. Perhaps, in some cases, such post-mortem photo was the only photo of that person.
ReplyDeleteToday, people have a lot of pictures from every period of life. Becouse of it, I don't see any reason to take pictures of dead people. I don't understand that somewhere this tradition still exists. Everyone wants to remember a dead person not at the time of death, but with more positive moments.
I can say even more. Those photoraphs were putting into frame and hanging on the wall in the hause of a dead person family. While today, we prefer to remember our ancestors as they lived, the Victorians felt that capturing their dead flesh was a way to pay respect to their passing.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand Indians believed that taking photo of them steal their souls.
People like different things, people believe in different things. It’s normal. If nowadays something is acceptable it doesn’t mean that in the future it won’t be illegal or just strange and inappropriate.
About Indians, they belive that also paintings steals their souls.
DeleteIt's very strange to understand why they do photo of dead people. Maybe they want use them to communicate with this dead people at spiritualist seanse.
ReplyDeleteThere was a film about house were this kind of photo were taken, title of film is The 'Haunting in Connecticut'.
"Nowadays post-mortem photography is not popular, but it’s still done for instance in Eastern Europe"
ReplyDeleteNever heard of it.
"In our times photographing dead people is creepy and nobody does it."
maybe this is the reason :P
What can I say? Taking photos of dead people is weird and I really don't want to know who came up with this idea. Even more strange is that people wanted to pose with dead people. Today a photographer taking photos like these in this article would probably be looking for attention.
One of the reasons in this case could be just the novelty that photography was - anyone who could afford it, took as many pictures as they could, including those with their dead.
ReplyDeleteSure, it's weird and creepy - but I think death was seen from a different perspective then, and I would guess that, objectively, today's pictures of cats in costumes, meals or bathroom selfies are disturbing as well.
You nailed it. :}
DeleteIt may be strange nowadays, but it was some way to remind people of how our long dead family members looked during their live. What's more, the photography was not a common thing back there, so it was like a big thing, to organise such a photo session.
ReplyDeleteI think it's still better than making photos with the dead ones, laying in their coffins, looking already quite scary, because when we're looking at these coffin sessions right now it's difficult to think about those that we never met like about people being alive. My family has some old photos I've seen and seeing these dead people in coffins makes the photos much more difficult to look at and browse through - because the feeling of seeing a corpse is too strong to act normally.
Yeah, well, some people like to keep the ashes of their family members on a shelf, others prefer a photo. Not sure which one is worse. I mean, if you want to remember someone this way, a photo taken some time before they were dead would suffice, right? RIGHT?
ReplyDeleteNuff said. ;)
DeleteI think that in present time we are very conscious about fact that death is a part of a cycle right ? :) I think it was just a case of different times, like You said, there were wars, simple disease could lead to death. I do think it was creepy and it still is, it gives goosebumps but on the other hand the idea itself is heart-moving. People wanted a souvenir, something that will remind them about their loved-ones who were gone but on the other hand it's bad on so many levels, posing with dead people that the only thing I can say that it is bad. I am shocked that it's going on in Eastern Europe - Orthodox christian do this kind of stuff, here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-mortem_photography#Evolving_style
Hmm... I don't have a sentence. But I think that photographing people after death nowadays, from one side remains some souvenir, from the other side however I don't know comfortable is the view of the person who died, and we take pictures her.
ReplyDeleteBetter to remain in our memories, not only on pictures.
Post-mortem photography is truly creepy and I would never even try to do such thing with my close ones. Also because they deserve respect and dignity, especially after death. Besides, I would feel at least odd manipulating someone's corpse to pose to a picture. In my opinion, there's no way that custom could ever return to civilised countries.
ReplyDeletePS. Can't deny there's something about these Victorian pictures what makes them interesting.
I don't understand it, it's disgusting and odd. Photos of dead peoples are full
ReplyDeleteof sadness, and I reckon that people should be happy on photos.
I do not know why people like the constant reminders of the death of people which they loved but in my opinions it had to be terrible. Instead of remember the people when they were alive, they preferred to remember dead family members. This is/was scary and awful.
ReplyDeletePS. Is rigor mortis did not bother them?
I have to admit that the topic of the presentation is shocking and it is hard for me to say anything about it. I understand that for many people such pictures could be a form of therapy after the death of a loved one, but on the other hand, the whole procedure of preparation (dressing, painting and posing with dead man) really scares me. These pictures intrigue and have something different, but I can not imagine that any of them hung on the wall in my house, because I probably will not sleep for months. Even though I'm afraid to ask, where did you get the inspiration for a presentation :)
ReplyDeleteI think it was creepy as hell!!! It was very odd, why they couldn't make it before people die!?!? There was one advantage about this photos. It was easier to make it because people weren't moving :D
ReplyDeleteI don’t understand that kind of art. I just don’t get it.
ReplyDeleteThis is horrible and abnormal.
Why photos of dead people can be called „art”? In our times this is too creepy to adopted.
Maybe in past it was something normal, but we have XXI centry, and in my opinion most of the people don’t like that kind of photos.
I don't understand why I would like to photograph someone after death. It doesn't make any sense for me and it's strange. For me photos should be done in happy moments of our life and death definitly isn't the happiest moment.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't keep a photo like that, because it would remind me of someone being dead instead of a good memories connected with the person. Because of the knowledge we have today, most people are living long enough and it's much harder to accept somebody passing away rather than in earlier centuries where death was much more common.
ReplyDeleteConcept itself was not that bad, especially in Victorian times when photo cameras were not common thing, not everybody could afford to have a picture. It is always a loss for the family, and they just wanted to have any resemblance of some already dead relatives. Nevertheless I would never want to take part in dead man photo session, the idea of standing next to dead relative only to take a photo is creeping me out.
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ReplyDelete