There are some subjects I do not feel appropriate photographing. I prefer to remember friends and family as I knew them. I understand the logistics of the past were different... but it's a line I've never crossed.
It's also true that many of the people I've photographed have since died. Some day my family will be left to decided the fate of these photos. I've done face tagging (more than once... grrrrr)
I do need to prune them down a bit. 350,000 photos is a bit much.
> I understand the logistics of the past were different... but it's a line I've never crossed.
I guess even back then this might very well have been what most people thought. We are obviously only left with the photos of those who didn't think that way.
An important factor probably was that these people might have never taken a photo of their loved ones at all before, an then suddenly you find yourself in this "now or never" situation while you're not in the best psychological condition ever.
It's going to take me a while to process this concept.
My first reaction is revulsion. Revulsion at posing corpses as though they were dolls. Revulsion at staying in physical contact with a corpse. A strong sense that it's incredibly disrespectful of the deceased.
I don't think the author is lying about it helping her and some others process their grief. But I have a hard time imagining it working that way for me. And it would take a lot to persuade me that this was okay even if the survivors did find it helpful.
Maybe I missed something redeeming when reading the story?
Totally agree. We have no concept of what it was like back then. Death was ever present. In the 1850's in the US the child mortality rate was ~40%, meaning just over half of the children born lived to the age of five. It would be expected that a mother and a father would find more than one of their children deceased at some point in their lives.
If it weren't for these photographs there would be in most cases no surviving image of these children. I can imagine as a parent there would be some burden to give your child's existence some durability.
If you had asked me two weeks plus one day ago my thoughts on this, I'd probably agree with you to some extent - like, do whatever, but it's still weird as hell.
My Dad passed two weeks ago today, and now, when seeing some of these photographs and reading this article, I get it. I might not personally need or want a photograph of my Dad's corpse in some pose (I'm quite content, to say the least, to have held his hand through his last breaths, and to have helped lift him onto the stretcher to be hauled off to the crematorium), but I can see why others might feel differently.
I went through a similar realization after having been in physical contact with a family member as they passed. It sort of demystified everything for me and gave me a much more practical perspective on what remains after they have gone.
Thanks, and likewise. I'm doing quite alright, considering. As much as I miss him, I'm more than anything relieved that he's no longer suffering.
And yeah, that demystification certainly helped. So did my folks and I (and Dad) sharing a rather macabre sense of humor. Nothing could've prepared me for rigor mortis setting in, though; few things are as weird as a human body being stiff as a log.
That’s a great point that i hadn’t even considered until you said it. We would say stuff in the house that would get two laughs, the first one because it was funny and the second one because who in their right mind would joke about that.
This article led me to type “Thanatos Archive” into Google Image Search… And that wasn’t the best idea just before going to bed. As a parent these images of children are haunting and disturbing.
I also understand they were taken because the 19th century parents simply had no other photos by which to remember the lost children. I’m just not sure we should be looking at them.
Death is a part of life. When I was young my parents would bring me to removals (where the body is put on display) so I would begin to understand death. Death is not something people should be protected from.
We’ve become so removed from it in the West. We make phone calls instead to employ the services of strangers to deal with it. It doesn’t seem right, or healthy. IDK.
I know that some people take comfort in looking at the remains of their dead loved ones. My stepfather always insisted on visiting the funeral home when e.g. one of his friends had died. It provided him with some kind of closure. I myself have always been uncomfortable with the practice and never went along. I made one exception, which I still regret. I went to see my mother in her casket, and the image still haunts me. She looked like someone I did not know. I prefer to remember people alive: animated, smiling, talking, looking back into your eyes.
I feel the same way. Practices surrounding death are deeply individualistic and have a cultural and religious backdrop. Everyone is different in how they handle the grief even within the same family.
In my case, I find that a viewing just gives me really bad lingering feelings on top of the sadness from the death. For me, it does nothing to provide closure and makes getting over it more difficult. The death event itself, actually, was very much a relief. That's what signaled closure and the end of suffering. It was the viewing that made the experience drag on for far too long though I can accept that others feel very differently.
This is weird, but I am most disturbed by the hands of the deceased. They have an uncanny unreal appearance. So much better to remember them alive. Yet other family members are able to pose selfies with the deceased, I found that repulsive and enraging but kept it to myself.
Ironically, death and it's rituals are all about the living and their needs and desires. It has very little to do with the person who actually dies.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 27.1 ms ] threadIt's also true that many of the people I've photographed have since died. Some day my family will be left to decided the fate of these photos. I've done face tagging (more than once... grrrrr)
I do need to prune them down a bit. 350,000 photos is a bit much.
I guess even back then this might very well have been what most people thought. We are obviously only left with the photos of those who didn't think that way.
An important factor probably was that these people might have never taken a photo of their loved ones at all before, an then suddenly you find yourself in this "now or never" situation while you're not in the best psychological condition ever.
This then corrupts the database for all other tagging.
My first reaction is revulsion. Revulsion at posing corpses as though they were dolls. Revulsion at staying in physical contact with a corpse. A strong sense that it's incredibly disrespectful of the deceased.
I don't think the author is lying about it helping her and some others process their grief. But I have a hard time imagining it working that way for me. And it would take a lot to persuade me that this was okay even if the survivors did find it helpful.
Maybe I missed something redeeming when reading the story?
If it weren't for these photographs there would be in most cases no surviving image of these children. I can imagine as a parent there would be some burden to give your child's existence some durability.
My Dad passed two weeks ago today, and now, when seeing some of these photographs and reading this article, I get it. I might not personally need or want a photograph of my Dad's corpse in some pose (I'm quite content, to say the least, to have held his hand through his last breaths, and to have helped lift him onto the stretcher to be hauled off to the crematorium), but I can see why others might feel differently.
I hope you're doing ok.
And yeah, that demystification certainly helped. So did my folks and I (and Dad) sharing a rather macabre sense of humor. Nothing could've prepared me for rigor mortis setting in, though; few things are as weird as a human body being stiff as a log.
I also understand they were taken because the 19th century parents simply had no other photos by which to remember the lost children. I’m just not sure we should be looking at them.
In my case, I find that a viewing just gives me really bad lingering feelings on top of the sadness from the death. For me, it does nothing to provide closure and makes getting over it more difficult. The death event itself, actually, was very much a relief. That's what signaled closure and the end of suffering. It was the viewing that made the experience drag on for far too long though I can accept that others feel very differently.
This is weird, but I am most disturbed by the hands of the deceased. They have an uncanny unreal appearance. So much better to remember them alive. Yet other family members are able to pose selfies with the deceased, I found that repulsive and enraging but kept it to myself.
Ironically, death and it's rituals are all about the living and their needs and desires. It has very little to do with the person who actually dies.