Have you heard about post mortem photography? During the 17th century when photography was still rather uncommon and very expensive, something you did maybe once or twice in your life, it was common to take a photo of a loved one who had passed away. For many that was the only photo they ever took of their loved one so for them it didn’t seem as morbid as photographing the dead does today. It was just something to remember a family member by. As photography became more and more common post mortem photography slowly disappeared almost completely. Now there’s no need to photograph our dead to remember them because we already have so many photos of our loved ones as living.
Due to the nature of the photos I won’t throw them in your face. Click if you want to see them, or don’t if you think it’s too disturbing. There’s no gore though, just dead people.
Sometimes they photographed people in such a manner that it was supposed to look like they were merely sleeping.
Sometimes surrounded by living people.
And even more disturbing, sometimes propped up to look alive. The girl in this photo is actually dead. She’s just propped up leaning against a frame located behind her back and if you look carefully you see that her pupils are actually painted on her eyelids.
There are many post mortem photos a lot more creepy than these. Photos in which people look obviously dead and really can’t be mistaken for merely being asleep. Here’s a site with some photos of the creepier kind.
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Okay, first off, I just gotta re state that I freakin’ love your blog entries. They’re always über interesting, not like a lot of people’s blogs, which tend to be quite dull most of the time … Ah. x_o;
Secondly, I feel quite lame that I had never heard of post mortem photography until now, but I do now, and I’m quite glad! The strangest part about it to me is that it wasn’t strange at all back then … Imagine if people wanted to do this nowadays with deceased family members? They’d likely be branded as psychotic!
In fact, I remember a recent tale in which a poorer family did this with their stillborn baby, and the entire world was aghast, appalled, and outraged when the photos became popular online.
Now I’m off to look at the link you provided! Sounds like it’s gonna be extremely interesting.
Somewhat creepy but..then again people even nowadays take photos at wakes and funerals. I actually did know about these photos..because I watched the movie “The Others” when it came out. That movie had such a “post mortem” book full of photos.
I think it is a pretty creepy yet interesting practice… I understand that people who lost someone need to have something to “remember” the one who moved on by, but um, I really don’t think that a post-mortem photo in which the deceased person is propped up to look alive is the way to do that.
In all honesty, I find that to be quite morbid.
I’ve seen photos like this before and I can’t help but find it intriguing. Just shows you how differently people thought about death back in the old days. I just think the pictures are a little sad and the living relatives must have been in a lot of pain.
First of all, I would just like to express how rare it is for me to enter a website for the first time and immediately read an entire blog entry. It’s probably creepy that the subject of this attracted me to read it but that’s besides the point. haha (:
I’m a history fanatic so this was super interesting to learn about, I didn’t realize people did that sort of thing. Without a doubt the most disturbing image is the dead girl propped up. Just feels like the perfect set up for a horror movie plot.
I always find these photos interesting, creepy and so very sad.