if pictures of dead people scare you, I don’t suggest you click on some of the links listed within the post itself.
many many many many many years ago, way before the average reader of this blog was born, photography was used as a form of documenting the family portraiture. things haven’t really changed much since the 1800s, in terms of documentation of the family and portraiture, but there has been a complete paradigm shift when it comes to photographing the subject.
now, our subjects are vibrant, looking off into the distance as if to contemplate the complexities of life and what to have for dinner. pictures also encapsulate the joy that is playing in the water fountain, or the happiness and relieve of getting one’s degree.
but, in the 1800s, photography was used to document the family upon the passing of a family member. in case you didn’t quite understand that, let me try to rephrase it into something simpler.
they took pictures of dead people.
simple enough?
as macabre as it sounds, I still think it is a very touching aspect of photography. we all take pictures because ultimately, the scene which we are trying to capture (albeit without the idiot who always ruins group pictures at clubs!) is something worth remembering, a keepsake. we want to forever hold on to that memory (at least until the hard disk containing all our precious pictures crashes), and to be able to reflect on it a day in the future. transpose it back a couple of hundred years, and you get the rough idea as to why people wanted to do it. dying was a very common thing back then, due to the general lack of sanitation and the lack of advancement in medical science and health care in general. I would dare to stick my neck out of the woods and say that people were a lot more comfortable around a dead body back then than they are right now. this comfort also allowed people to take pictures of their loved ones in their final resting state, so as to allow them to have forever, a portrait of their loved one even though he/she/it may have passed on.
fast forward a couple of hundred years later to modern society, and we’re all spooked out by death and the presence of dead people. however, this has not detered some people into capturing moments such as death. granted, some forms of death may not necessarily be the most peaceful of deaths, but these people have tried to capture in essence, the very natural transformation of human lives. two photographers documented the lives (and deaths) of patients in a cancer hospice, and in essence summed up the fears, joy, and peace that the patients were experiencing prior to passing.
another touching project I found was “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep“, or NILMDTS, which captures images of parents who have lost their children immediately after child birth. NILMDTS is a foundation that “is there for parents and families to help aid them in their Healing, bring Hope to their future and Honour to their child” and that “it is through Remembrance that a family can truly begin to heal.”
I must admit, I am a very touched by the idea of people who are willing to go beyond current social norms so as to aid people in remembering their story, or their loved one’s story. although it may not necessarily be the norm in the Asian society that I am from (since there is a huge hullabaloo with regards to the dead), the idea of remembering our loved ones through pictures of them in their final and peaceful resting state is touching, heart warming, and tear jerking at the same time. sure, I will get the goosebumps knowing that it is a picture of somebody who has passed on, but I guess at the end of the day, the only difference between the picture of my loved one who has passed on and of the same loved one whilst he/she/it was living would be my perception of him/her/it.
it is only freaky because I perceive for it to be freaky. but why such perception, when it is merely an image of my loved one?
(photocredit for other pictures to Flickr users so.sarah and tsgfarnetti.)
