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Published on October 6, 2006 By dharmagrl In Misc

Antique photographs.  Degaeurrotype, cabinet and imperial cards, tin types....anything dated pre-WWII, but more specifically, memento mori.

In the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, most people didn't have access to a photographer.  The photographs that we take for granted these days were almost unheard of, and some people went their entire lives without ever having their photo taken.

So, their photos were taken in death instead.  Sometimes people were posed to appear alive, with the photographer painting their eyes in post-sitting.  Some folks were draped artistically across couches or beds, and some had their photos taken whilst laying in their caskets.

A great number of memento mori are of children.  Parents wanted a photo to remember their children by....I can understand why so many of them chose to have their babies photographed in death rather than not at all.  You have to remember that this was the age before antibiotics and widespread vaccinations; the child mortality rate was astoundingly high.

Rather than being grueseome (although the ones that have painted eyes can be slightly disturbing), these memento mori are often beautifully lit and staged pictorial mementos.  I like them, that's why I've started to collect them.

Now if I could just figure out WHY I like them...


Comments
on Oct 06, 2006
I have quite a few OLD photographs from around the turn of the century and somewhere among them (I haven't looked throught them in years) is a picture of some long gone relative laying in a casket.Weird how people used to take pictures of such things.

Or really not so much weird because we take pics of everything else in life, so why not death too? I guess it's just not something we're used to in our death paranoid culture.
on Oct 06, 2006

Can I take a stab at why you like them?

I think you like them because you can appreciate the spirit in which they were taken.  They weren't taken with morbid fascination, nor were they kept for freakshow shock.  Like you said, photographers were hired to take this pictures because this relatively new technology could finally give them something they never had before... a permanent record they their loved ones really did live. 

Just think, until photography the only people who were remembered were the celebrities of the day and those who attained folk hero status.  Your collection of photos probably won't include many of those... just every day people who someone wanted to remember after their passing.

 

on Oct 07, 2006

Or really not so much weird because we take pics of everything else in life, so why not death too? I guess it's just not something we're used to in our death paranoid culture.

Bingo!  We - meaning our modern culture - do pretty much everything we can to avoid death in any and all forms.  We dress it up, put make-up on it so it looks like life, shove it into a corner.....the lengths we go to to avoid it and make it seem like something else are ridiculous.

I'd like to be able to sit with you and look through those photos, Shovel.  Guess I can wish, huh?!

Can I take a stab at why you like them?
I think you like them because you can appreciate the spirit in which they were taken

I think that you're right.  Because of what I do with hospice, I can appreciate how and why they were taken.  Actually, I have a story about that....the last person I sat vigilance with had a god-son who flew in at the last minute to see him.  He wasn't in the room when my patient died (I was, however; I won't leave anyone alone when I'm sitting vigilance) but when he came back he got his camera out and took a couple of photos of his godfather.  I was glad that he did; I understood the need that he felt to memorialize his friend for the last time.

Here's a couple of ones that I've found across the internet and have saved because I think they're beautiful: