To be fascinated by Victorian Post Mortem photography?

[2kidsintow]

It is so sad. So many images of adults and children who have passed away and then were recorded for their families to remember them.

www.flickr.com/photos/thanatosdotnet/sets/72157600887340360

There was a thread on this recently. I wonder why people are suddenly getting into this now?

I find this strangley interesting too

wish I'd not clicked on that link
I feel that it's disrespectful to the dead perhaps. I'm not sure but I'm not comfortable with it.

Maybe in Victorian times they didn't have hundreds of photos of the person alive as we do now - in fact, maybe they had no photos at all, hence the need to take one post-mortem.

I must admit I do find it intrusive, and I wouldn't want one of any of my loved ones, but then again I have many photos of them alive.

Strangely fascinating though.

Are they dead???

I agree with farside maybe the lack of pictures is the reason, we have pics of ds4 who died before he was born, probably because there all we have to remember him. I can't imagen taking pictures of anyone else after they had died though.

I do find the way some of them are posed abit strange

Yes haven't you seen the film 'the others'? Shiver! Sad, fascinating, creepy. Often it was the only picture of the loved one they would have. Particularly of the children and babies.

They remind me of a picture my nanna used to have that used to scare me.

It was a little girl standing in a corner with a doll and there was a dog in it.

I can understand why they were taken at the time...I just feel uncomfortable looking at them online somehow. I can understand why people are fascinated by them though.

yes I've seen the others - perhaps that's why I feel uncomfortable looking at them.

Me too. I'm in the nursery nursing my baby in low light, actively NOT clicking on that link!

What bothers me about those particular photos is the seeming lack of care/empathy/sympathy on the part of those commenting and the person that posted them. Just "I am sure this child is dead because of the flowers, position of the hands and feet and the photo surround" :(

some of those were heartbreaking, especially the young toddler and the slightly older child together.

I agree that the lack of "living" photos may be the reason for them and also because the Victorians had a huge obsesssion with death, they love melodrama around death (abstractly, when it happened to someone else) and I suspect that death wasnt "done" properly unless there was a photo involved :(

I feel weird now after seeing a few and now knowing they are dead in the picture. I feel like I shouldn't have seen them.

I agree with face concerning the comments.

Forget the photos, just read the comments.

I feel sick at the utter lack of compassion some people show :(

yes fascinating, thanks for the link...not as macabre as you might expect, sort of comforting in a way I cant explain

I dont see a problem with the comments, they are probably in keeping with the Victorian attitude towards death and therefore appropriate.

I'm thinking the Victorians were more matter of fact and accepting of death, they had to be, lots of parents would have to watch and wait as thier children were carried off by infections that are easily treated today..lots of mothers and babies died in childbirth

THey might be "in keeping" but that doesnt make them right!

A photo of a dead toddler propped up in a chair only gets comments like "nice re-touch" or "good quality". You think thats ok?

oh and you're right that the Victorians had to be more accepting of death, but the death of children isnt normal for us, and therefore the total lack of emotion is not appropriate, not at all.

something funny going on here... identical thread was posted a couple of weeks ago. suspect someone publicising their site.

THey might be "in keeping" but that doesnt make them right!

I could equally say that the fact that something offends a particular person doesnt make it 'wrong'
we are talking about matters of personal taste, an opinion is not a fact

But I didnt say that the photos offended me, I said that the total lack of emotion upset me.

this photostream is specifically to show off the retouching of these pictures.

that's why you're seeing comments about the quality of the pics and so on.

there are an awful lot of emotional and respectful comments too!

i think post-mortem photographs are beautiful and sad. they are certainly part of the West's cultural heritage and not things that should be hidden.

I wish there were names attached to the images. Without knowing a thing about the people pictured, I feel like I'm gawking. I realise this is somebody's hobby, though - s/he has no obligation to become a genealogist!

Oik, you are right, so the comments based purely on the quality of the pics is understandable, but I also agree with Garlicnutter that if there were names or....I dunno...something on each photo then it would feel less vouyeristic.

I didnt care about the photos, but I do care about the people in them, which I guess misses the point.

I bet some of those photos were never supposed to be seen by anyone but the family, not all Victorian families displayed them for all to see.

I wonder what theyd think of thousands of people looking at them