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Some of you might remember a blog I did last year, Only the Creepiest Photos Ever Taken. It was a small collection of something I’d just discovered — Victorian mourning photography, in which the dead are posed as if they were “just sleeping” and photographed, creating an expensive memento mori that was often the only photograph a family would have of the deceased loved one.
Well, I just found something creepier. A lot creepier. It’s a sub-genre of the Victorian mourning portrait, in which photographers clamp and pose the dearly departed in such a way that they look fully awake — usually standing up, eyes either held open by some unknown mechanism (shudder) or with pupils painted over closed eyes, to very, very creepy effect. They’re too crazy and weird not to share with you guys, but I’ll do the nightmare-prone among you a favor and save the first image until after the jump. (There’s nothing lose-your-lunch gross about these — this ain’t rotten.com, after all — they’re just deeply unsettling.)
There’s something just unspeakably creepy about this fireman. At first glance, he looks like a normal, awkwardly-posed guy from the 19th century. But upon closer inspection, you notice a few tell-tale signs: a rigid pose and fingers, a stand not quite completely hidden behind his feet, which is holding him up by some unseen armature on his back, liberal amounts of rouge applied to too-white cheeks, and those blank, blank eyes.
If you really love this photo and feel like you need to hang it in the bathroom, you can buy it now on eBay for $999. The seller hazards a guess that this is a photo of someone who died in the line of duty.
If that wasn’t horrific enough for you, try this one on for size:
The girl’s rigid hands and painted-on pupils — not to mention the edge of a stand behind her left leg — give it away. The owner of the photograph adds:
If you look closely you can see a base behind the girls feet and a post would go up from that with clamps at the waist and neck and the clothing would be open at the back. The arms would have stiff wires running at the back to hold them in place. Also notice the strange placement of the hands. The pupils are painted on the closed eyelids.
The jury is out on the girl above, but I think this might well be a post mortem photo. (There are lots of “maybe” post-mortem photos on the net, because you can’t always tell.) The eBay auctioneer who’s selling this makes a few compelling speculations:
I was told by somebody who collects these that this is a post-mortem (death) photo of a girl who was posed standing up with different props. There is a stand behind her which can be seen right behind her feet. Also, there is a second draped prop positioned against her hip. It also appears there is some sort of brace beneath her dress. She appears stiff and her whole body leans backwards slightly.
Oy. This one is horrible for many reasons, not least of which being the distinct possibility that both father and son are dead in this picture. (Why are his hand and face discolored?) Feel free to speculate in the comments. From flickr user VictorianEra.
This one is just plain weird, but the telltale signs of rigid limbs and awkward pose — and the need for a pillow to hold up the head — seem to indicate that this is post-mortem. From eBay.
There are more, but I think this is more than enough, don’t you? (I’m all creeped out now.) I’ll leave you with this thought from flickr guru mrwaterslide, regarding the post-mortem photography of the Victorians:
Sometimes, (imagine it) a post-mortem photograph was the only image a mother or a father had of a lost dearly loved child. Who are we, in our twenty-first century cocoons, walled-off from the reality of death, to point a finger back in time and mock the impulse to possess that last glimpse?
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Comments (79)
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strange…but you just want to stare
posted by trippyjeff on 8-27-2009 at 11:27 am
I love these! I wrote a paper on victorian mourning photography recently. A lot of photos I looked at were of babies. It’s a bit creepy, but like you said, it’s probably the only picture the family would ever have of them. There were even some of animals that had died.
posted by Amanda on 8-27-2009 at 11:52 am
Pat Morida?! I didn’t know he owned dogs!
posted by Steven on 8-27-2009 at 11:53 am
Love these!! Keep them coming!
posted by Jan on 8-27-2009 at 11:58 am
What’s creepy is that the second photo down of the dead girl and family was taken from the town I was born in. I am also starting to wonder which house they lived in originally.
posted by Wilsojl on 8-27-2009 at 12:10 pm
Ew, ew, ew ew ew ew. I have goosebumps from the creepiness.
posted by Adrienne on 8-27-2009 at 12:13 pm
I… yeah. I’m going to go slice a pork roast now…
posted by Kate on 8-27-2009 at 12:28 pm
I don’t think the third subject is dead. I see no stand or brace, and she doesn’t really have that dead “look.” Keep in mind, another condition of old photography was a general stiffness, for the exposure, and seriousness, for having one’s picture taken was serious stuff.
posted by Johnny Cat on 8-27-2009 at 12:35 pm
The girl standing between her parents (I presume) is so sad! You can see it in the mother’s face. They weren’t the smiliest of people anyway, but mom just looks heartbroken.
posted by Hyacinth on 8-27-2009 at 12:39 pm
I used to be weirded out by dead bodies until I actually saw one. A relative of mine passed from cancer in his home and I stood with the corpse before the funeral home came to retrieve the body. It was shocking, but not horrific. It was just a shell, so to speak.
For those who are so creeped out by these photos, how is it any different than an open-casket viewing at a funeral? (The open eyes, I guess?)
posted by Gretchen on 8-27-2009 at 1:13 pm
Early photographers used the braces or stands on people who were quite alive – to help them hold steady and not spoil a plate during the long exposure process.
A look at the work of Mathew Brady for instance shows this brace on many people.
That said, poste mortem photographs may seem creepy, but often it was the only chance people had to memorialize their departed friends and family.
More books on the topic: Sleeping Beauty, and Sleeping Beauty II by Dr. Stanley B. Burns.
posted by Dianne on 8-27-2009 at 1:15 pm
I feel so bad for these people.
posted by Nick on 8-27-2009 at 1:17 pm
This tradition actually goes on to a certain extent even today. Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (.org) is an organization dedicated to memorial photography of babies who die due to complications or what not.
Their site is positively heartbreaking, but they do good, difficult work for grieving families. Click my name for a closer look.
posted by EMStoveken on 8-27-2009 at 2:05 pm
it was very common for living people to have stands holding them. the exposure for this early form of photography was often 5 seconds
posted by neuralstatic on 8-27-2009 at 3:16 pm
Living people can’t stand up for more than 5 seconds?
posted by the creature on 8-27-2009 at 3:37 pm
they definitely can’t stand still enough for a photo. photos easily blur at 1/15th of a second
posted by neuralstatic on 8-27-2009 at 3:58 pm
My sister lost two children during childbirth on different occasions. Photographs were taken after the delivery both times. It strikes people as odd from the outside, but you’ve waited and anticipated and loved this child for nine months, and you get a blink of an eye to physically spend with it before you have to say goodbye. Forever. It’s hard and strange and ugly to think about, but it’s natural to want to remember. I thought it was odd the first time it happened and they were taking pictures, but now, years later, realize how important it was.
Whew, sorry about the downer. Um, Beer Friday tomorrow, everybody!
posted by EV on 8-27-2009 at 4:15 pm
I LOVE these!
posted by Amanda on 8-27-2009 at 7:15 pm
I think the father is discolored due to the natural breakdown of tissue post-mortem. Embalming was not widespread in the era.
posted by gckittehmom on 8-27-2009 at 8:14 pm
I used to be creeped out by this sort of thing, but I’m over it now.
What people don’t understand is, back then they didn’t have funeral parlors to deal with their loved ones: they dealt with them themselves. They had so much more contact with dead bodies that they weren’t scared or creeped out by the people they loved, even though they were dead.
One must understand that sometimes when you die, your eyes are open and stay that way. Indeed, there is a much more gruesome process that the funeral industry goes through in order to keep the eyes closed, and it involved shoving something up into the eyelid. In fact, the whole embalming process is so invasive and creepy that one wonders why we are so disturbed by mere posing–which funeral parlours do all the time.
Remember that these are real people who were loved by the people who are getting the pictures done. People who dealt with death so much more than we do. Some of us today hand our family members over to State and Industry the moment we find them dead, have them embalmed and sealed in a coffin without ever looking at them. It’s no wonder we are disturbed by this.
But this is an era when most children didn’t make it past 5 or 6 years old. This is an era where most people had to clean, dress, and bury their own dead several times in their lives. People they really loved, just like we do.
I see no moral injustice done here. We acknowledge that the bodies are “shells,” and maybe they did, too.
You have to wonder about how someone in Victorian times thought about the relatively new medium of photography. The process was more involved and probably magical, too. I just don’t think most people try and take the time to relate to people in these “creepy” photos in any thoughtful way. We’d rather throw away the photos and imagine the staring faces haunting us, than try to understand it.
posted by Hellbound Alleee on 8-28-2009 at 7:03 am
This was a particularly sad time in the history of photography. The process of taking pictures was new, complicated, and expensive, so they didn’t consider it while the children were alive. Earlier, they didn’t know what they were missing because no one had photos and only the very rich had painted portraits. Now we take constant pictures of our families. But in the Victorian era, soon after death was a “last chance” (and often only chance) to get an image.
posted by Miss Cellania on 8-28-2009 at 9:14 am
When I’m dead I don’t want them taking pictures of me… I just want them to use my body to play a giant game or Rock’em Sock’em Robots and that’s it.
posted by Manhattan on 8-28-2009 at 10:25 am
How’s this for a ghoulish thought? The man with child photo could be that the child died a week or so after the father. They wanted a photo of the child. The child was to be buried next to the father. Since they basically were digging up the same grave. They exhumed the man to have him pose with the child and be in the picture too.
…and maybe their names were Benjamin and Michael because my recaptcha is
Benjamin Micheal
posted by Tdave on 8-28-2009 at 10:27 am
I think the open locket around the girl’s neck in the second picture is really weird. I’ve not noticed a locket being worn completely opened like that in other family portraits from that era.
posted by Melissa on 8-28-2009 at 11:20 am
Death is part of life , what is sad or creepy is the inability to accept this .
Honor in death is the ultimate compliment .
posted by Terry on 8-28-2009 at 11:44 am
I doubt that any of these are truly mourning photos. The bracing that you may see is a common photographers tool used during this time period. They were used to hold the subject still, which was due to very slow shutter speeds that were necessary to capture the image (this is pre-flash powder days). The “painted” eyes on the eyelids, may be, indeed, added to the image in post processing because of movement from the eyes/eye lids during the exposure. No fancy Photoshop tricks here — they probably just scratched the emulsion off the glass negative or inked in or scratched the surface of the print (if there was one).
Nice urban legend, here, but I suspect it’s just that.
posted by alan Smithee on 8-28-2009 at 12:14 pm
My mother had a baby 2 years after I was born that was still-born. They took a picture of her laying in the bassinet, wrapped in a blanket. I actually carry this picture around with me. I am now 19 and think often about how different life would have been for my family had she been alive. I love her and miss her everyday.
posted by Marie Bellis on 8-28-2009 at 12:15 pm
Yawn
posted by sage on 8-28-2009 at 1:10 pm
The stands behind the individual being photographed do not necessarily mean that the person is dead. Often in these old photos, the subject had to hold the pose for a long time … often several minutes without moving at all. This often led to very stiff poses and pained expressions. Plus many photographers had stands or seats of one form or another to help the people pose in the necessary position, and hold it long enough.
posted by John Standish on 8-28-2009 at 2:23 pm
Ofcourse it is weird to post pics of death people BUT the reasons why assuming the people in the pics posted are actually death is questionable!
In the early days of photography it was not uncommon for having stands behind the people, to keep them in the same position!
Why? It took minutes for the photo being taken! And people tend to move…… even slightly would damage the picture!
And asto the people being dead.. coloration etc.
Also questionable… in the early days the material the pictures were taken with (mostly glassplates), and as these pictures are old, there may be detoriation in the quality!
Being honest about it, it seems more to be a attention-drawing action then a real truthful action!
posted by MasterAdrian on 8-28-2009 at 3:07 pm
Why is there a scientology ad?
posted by CourtC777 on 8-28-2009 at 3:34 pm
I wish I could hit a “like” button on some of these comments….anway, I am so very glad that we have abandoned this tradition.
reCaptcha: that boogie
posted by Shash on 8-28-2009 at 4:15 pm
My brother lives in a house built turn of the century 1900. The front porch has two doors. One leads to one room, one leads to another and many homes in our town have these. My sister in law told me one door was called the ‘death door’, leading to the room where the dead person was displayed (if someone would die of course). Like you mentioned about the death room in another story, people paying their respects came in one door past the dead and walked out the other. I’ll never look at “living room” the same way though.
posted by jennifer on 8-28-2009 at 4:19 pm
After witnessing my own father dying I did not find these too disturbing.
At first I tought should I look at these but felt that since I’ve seen a person (a very dear one) dying these could not be worse. And they were not, strange for today’s folks though.
But that’s life. Three months ago when dad was still with me I probably would have not looked… now I have a daughter that’s three days old so perhaps I can see dreams of her instead of nightmares of these pictures.
posted by JP on 8-28-2009 at 4:59 pm
None of the people in these shots are dead. The braces are used to hold individuals still during long exposures. Pupils were painted on for the same reason.
posted by Sikma on 8-28-2009 at 5:34 pm
The others are all up for debate, but I’m damn sure dead fireman is dead, Mr. Smithee.
posted by readysteadystop on 8-28-2009 at 5:52 pm
creepy
posted by Charlotte on 8-28-2009 at 6:21 pm
Seriously…I think you’re wanting to believe that these people are dead. Some of clearly alive. When photography was a very young art, there were all kinds of techniques (some mentioned here) to make people look alive who were already alive.
The style of photography at the time made everyone look dead because of the high contrast and the length of time one had to sit to get a focused image.
I’m all for postmortem photography but I think what we have here is the same process that creates things like ghost stories and urban legends.
The fact is, only the people who took the photos know if the subjects were alive or dead and they’re not talking. But if you’re buying PM photos on Ebay to scratch some kind of morbid itch, know this: you’re probably just buying an old photo of a creepy looking old person from a bygone era.
More common were photos of caskets and flowers of the burying rituals and funerals…that’s how you know postmortem photography…the casket and flowers. Almost anything else is suspect.
posted by christopher on 8-28-2009 at 7:24 pm
I really didn’t need to know about all of this…so effing wrong. can someone please remove this images from my psyche?
posted by nopstar on 8-28-2009 at 8:08 pm
When you got a picture taken “way back when”, you had to remain perfectly still or the photo would come out blurry. To do this, they would have a stand that goes behind the person and holds your head in a sort of brace so you don’t move, also why they always look serious, they are concentrating on not moving…Now, I’m not saying these aren’t post-mortem photos, I’m just saying…..
posted by FrankLucas on 8-28-2009 at 10:38 pm
Hi,as a professional photographer for over 25 years now,I’m very sceptical that any of the images shown are of genuine post mortem photography. I agree with johnny cat, alan smithee, neuralstatic, christopher, frank and master adrian. Due to the long exposures required by the equipment available at the time, living subjects had to be held in fixed poses by stands and clamps, giving the rigid and sometimes unnatural look to the subjects. It is almost impossible to expect someone to hold perfectly still for several seconds (even 1/15th of a second causes big problems – try it).
Even clamping the body is not enough as the subject is still able to move their eyes and blink (even the inventive Victorians couldn’t come up with a clamp for the eyes!)causing the blank eyeless stare described. Read the comments from the people mentioned above, they give good advice. Don’t always take things on face value, ask questions and be sceptical.
I hope nopstar feels a little better about the subject now.
posted by Davey L on 8-29-2009 at 7:04 am
I can’t image anyone who would buy these photos.
posted by Comet on 8-29-2009 at 7:53 am
I am a member at The Thanatos Archive where there are hundreds (thousands?) more of these creepy post mortem photos. Click my name to go there. I highly recommend joining!
posted by Jillian on 8-29-2009 at 8:54 am
OK since there’s so many commenters who deny that these are pics of dead people, (I myself can offer no qualified opinion on whether they’re dead or not), I think it would be great if Mental Floss (or a commenter) could point us to some resources which could verify whether or not these types of pictures were actually made back in the day. There should be some references somewhere in historical literature about this sort of practice, right?
If the only evidence that people took these kinds of photos is the photos themselves, which are interpreted differently by different people, showing up on the ‘net in recent times, then I would have a hard time believing they’re real. But if there’s a lot of actual evidence of this practice taking place, then it would be great to see some comparisons between known PM photos and these ones, pointing out the differences/similarities to support the various arguments here.
posted by Michigan Mom on 8-29-2009 at 10:48 am
Not all photos claiming to be post-mortem are real (you can’t always tell), but it’s certain that this was a relatively common practice in the early days of photography. Check out this wikipedia article on PM photography, which includes a great example (that I wish I had posted in this article) of a PM photograph of parents sitting with their young adult daughter — her eyes are open, rouge on her cheeks, posed/braced to look as if she were just pleasantly sitting on a couch.
Because these were often the only photos people had of their now-deceased loved ones, many of them tried (not always successfully) to hide the fact that the subjects in the photos were dead.
“The earliest post-mortem photographs are usually close-ups of the face or shots of the full body and rarely include the coffin … The subject is usually depicted so as to seem in a deep sleep, or else arranged to appear more lifelike … [or] posed in chairs or even braced on specially-designed frames.”
“The effect of life was sometimes enhanced by either propping the subject’s eyes open or painting pupils onto the photographic print, and many early images (especially tintypes and ambrotypes) have a rosy tint added to the cheeks of the corpse. Later examples show less effort at a lifelike appearance, and often show the subject in a coffin.”
posted by Ransom Riggs on 8-29-2009 at 11:19 am
I am much more disturbed by mental floss’s ad promotion of scientology. I was not expecting that from you guys!
posted by Kristen on 8-29-2009 at 11:19 am
@Kristen –
I don’t have any control over the ads.
posted by Ransom Riggs on 8-29-2009 at 11:49 am
Thanks Ransom. I find this a rather interesting subject, which I had not previously known existed. From the info you provided, it doesn’t seem that there is any real doubt that this practice existed at the time. That makes some commenters denials that these are PM photos baffling. There’s no reason in particular to think these are fakes.
posted by Michigan Mom on 8-29-2009 at 12:13 pm
The man with the boy looks like the insect alien from the movie Men in Black.
posted by Counterstryke on 8-29-2009 at 1:06 pm
I hope my family does ones for me when I die — but doing something awesome like watching “The Wire” or eating a comically large hamburger.
posted by zxcvb on 8-29-2009 at 9:23 pm
The firefighter got me because I was a firefighter
posted by MICHAEL KOVANDA on 8-30-2009 at 12:11 am
Most photo’s from that time did have the “dead” effect if you look over most of them. Though it was very common in that era to take photo’s after death. Photography wasn’t exactly like it is today. You just didn’t go out click a shot and come home and print it off on your printer on the fancy gloss paper. So it was very common practice for the living to pay for a lasting memento and stage a photo. Almost all of these photos have a few quirks that pretty much mark them “dead”.
posted by Mike on 8-30-2009 at 1:34 am
these are cool old photos but I don’t believe they are pms. as earlier commenters clarified, photographers in the 19th century using cameras with long exposure times would employ stands and braces routinely to keep their subjects from blurring. that’s why they look stiff. they had to freeze in position to have a crisp picture taken.
Baby Dad and Dog guy both are looking directly at the camera lens. coincidence?
nah.
to learn more about how to discern authentic pm’s, try the best post mortem website on the net, the thanatos archive. a huge collection of post mortems from around the world and through the various periods of time when the custom flourished.
I’m a member of that community and have learned a heck of a lot about history, customs, culture, you name it.
posted by Carolyn on 8-30-2009 at 10:53 am
there is a store off mainstreet in new hope pa that sells all this kind of stuff, pictures, death pillows, old doctors bags, stuffed animals 9the dead kind, not the fuffy kind) while ive never bought anything from there the man who owns it is very nice and the shop is always fun to poke around in.
posted by jess on 8-30-2009 at 11:03 pm
I’m certain there is a lot of PM photography out there, the similarities to living photography of the same period
are very close, for the reasons stated above. When adding to your collection examine offered photographs carefully from a position of knowledge before you buy.
posted by Davey L on 8-31-2009 at 7:56 am
Although taking photos of the dead during Victorian times (or even now) wouldn’t surprise me, I know for a fact that stands were used for living portrait subjects.
When cameras were first invented, the shutter had to be open an awfully long time to get a proper exposure. Any movement on the subjects part created a blurry image. Stands were used to help people stand in exactly the right position for several seconds while the shutter was open. Due to poor film, light, manipulation, storage, etc., anything could’ve caused the weird eyes and other strange characteristics mentioned.
From http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/portrait.htm
“…there were various methods of keeping a sitter still, a popular one being a metal clamp (hidden from the camera) behind the sitter’s head. (This was not new to photography, one must add – it was quite commonly used on conventional portraiture).”
And…
“One problem which Hill and Adamson were not able to resolve was eye control. Exposures were very long indeed, and it is likely that Hill (the artist of the two) advised sitters to close their eyes unless they were very good at keeping their eyes open without blinking.”
posted by Kelly on 8-31-2009 at 4:04 pm
The father and son pic creeped me out because the father looks very dead, but the son could be alive. To me, that would be much creepier than if they were both dead.
posted by Tina on 9-1-2009 at 11:02 am
I don;t thin kany of these are post-mortem. Long ago when portrait photos were taken the required exposure times were often quite long, many minutes and possibly an hour.
Because of this stands were lmost always erected to “mount” people, thus keeping them still.
Regarding the eyes, this may have been a touchup to conceal the blinking action that may have been captured over the long exposure
posted by Sean on 9-1-2009 at 1:38 pm
I am the owner of the “post mortem” with the girl and parents. I had the pic on my website for years before I labeled it a post mortem. I started getting ridiculus offers to buy that pic from post mortem collectors who search out these pics for their collections. I have had many experts approach me about it and after much research I started to label it as a PM. You may not believe that it is a PM but the experts have told me that it is and offered much bucks for it.
thanx Martin
posted by Martin on 9-1-2009 at 1:38 pm
Can we say redundant??
posted by lindseyu on 9-1-2009 at 3:45 pm
Can you guys please read the comments before you leave one? They all say the same thing. Speaking of which — just because photographers in days of yore might’ve used a brace to steady living people during long exposures doesn’t mean that they never took pictures of dead people standing up.
posted by Ransom Riggs on 9-1-2009 at 4:20 pm
I agree with Ransom Riggs’ most recent comment. When this post first appeared I had no idea pics like these were ever taken. Once I followed some links and read up a bit on the subject, I found out that there are many photos like this around. With that in mind, why do do many of you commenters keep saying that these pics aren’t actually PM pics? Just saying that stands were used on living people sometimes and their eyes were sometimes painted over isn’t an explanation at all.
Following that logic, I could just as easily say that a particular picture of a glass of wine isn’t really a picture of wine because grape juice looks just like wine. That’s a very weak argument.
The fact that there are people who question the authenticity of the photos isn’t what bothers me–it’s their weak arguments for their position.
posted by Michigan Mom on 9-3-2009 at 2:05 am
Serously creepy photos………. I think painting the eyelids is better than keeping them open though .
posted by Ameena on 9-3-2009 at 12:36 pm
I can’t help but point out to Michigan Mom that if a picture of a glass of wine looks just like a glass of grape juice, then it might well be a glass of grape juice. Or it might be wine. Or it might be tinted water.
The fact is that no one can say for certain whether these photos do or do not depict dead people posed as though they were alive. That people actually took such pictures I don’t doubt, but without documentary evidence, there is no way to prove that these particular pictures do show people posed in sucha fashion. Personally, I find a few of these more compelling than others, but I do think you have to think about the difficulty of posing a body in a life-like fashion. Bodies are heavy, they get stiff, they decompose—all those things would pose problems for the photographer.
One factor that might weigh in favor of a cabinet card (a somewhat larger photo (6 1/2″ by 4 1/4″ is the size of the card mount) being a post mortem would be that shutter speeds were faster by that point (late 1870’s and later) and posing stands were used less frequently. Tintypes almost always used posings stands, and I think cdv’s also.
The person on flickr who might give a
more reasoned, authoritative answer would be photo_history, a husband-and-wife team who have comprehensive knowledge and a compelling collection.
What I can tell you for certain is that on Ebay, recently, but before this article appeared, there has been quite a
fad for calling every other cabinet card where the subject has any kind of pallor a “post mortem.” I personally would not pay that premium without written documentary evidence that backed up the assertion of Post Mortem.
Finally, somebody said they couldn’t fathom why anyone would buy such a photo. The few true post mortems I have I bought because the subjects exist as compelling human beings who once were alive, not because they are now dead, in the photograph.
posted by mrwaterslide on 9-3-2009 at 11:57 pm
First learned about these in Nicole Kidman’s THE OTHERS movie that I can’t get out of my mind no matter how hard I try (I don’t watch that kind of movie). They talked about these types of photos and I learned that was not fiction.
posted by Meryl on 9-4-2009 at 12:00 pm
The end quote from the original post:
“Who are we, in our twenty-first century cocoons, walled-off from the reality of death….”
Really? Look around at all the wars and genocides and crime and how does that equate to a cocoon? Even people who haven’t seen an actual dead body are exposed to fictional, yet graphic and realistically portrayed deaths, on television and in movies. The average Victorian certainly didn’t see violent murder acted out on a daily basis. I would classify us as desensitized to death, or say that it has been sensationalized, as opposed to people being walled off from it. In fact, it’s probably more due to the constant exposure to horror movies and the like that gives the knee jerk “creepy” reaction.
posted by Sam on 9-4-2009 at 9:28 pm
the use of braces proves nothing about these photographs, during the early days of photography photographic plates sometimes took 20 to 30 minutes to be properly exposed, photographers used braces all the time on living subjects to help them stay still for that long. non of these look particulaly like corpses, the girl in the second ones eye’s could have been painted on print if they didn’t come out well and she even has a blurey finger on her right hand suggesting she moved during exposure.
posted by scepticaljoe on 9-8-2009 at 7:04 am
To achieve this effect, take a long exposure photo of your friend while they move their eyes around madly.
*important* They must keep their head perfectly still for this to work. It’s pretty easy with a bit of practise.
I’ve got a bunch of examples on my flickr group http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisland/2339057973/in/pool-omgzombies/
cheers!
posted by Chris on 9-8-2009 at 8:42 am
I SEE DEAD PEOPLE!!!!
posted by Tdave on 9-11-2009 at 1:43 pm
I don’t think the photo of the single girl is a post mortem at all. To me she just looks annoyed that she has to stand so very still for said long with all kinds of props poking her body. In many cases maybe except with this slightly backwards leaning girl, the stands probably wouldn’t supply any real support. I think they would just poke the body making a reference frame so the person could feel if a shift of the body was about to happen. So it was up the the person self to continously correct for small body moves. That would also explain somewhat awkward bodyposes from time to time.
posted by Jacob on 9-11-2009 at 3:49 pm
I was born in the wrong time period,apparently. I wish people still took pictures like this today.
posted by Reflect on 9-18-2009 at 3:04 pm
I was born in the wrong time period,apparently. I wish people still took pictures like this today.
next generation will also say something this.
posted by jmj godville on 9-24-2009 at 1:50 am
It is of course hard to say anything about thes poor scans on a web page, but having worked as a professional photographer with old photos in an archive almost 20 years now, I think the only dead one here is the child on a man’s lap. The reasons are mentioned in the comments, except the blue-sensitive plates and materials used at that time, wich caused blue-eyed persons pupils appear much lighter than in reality, and thereby almost disappear.
On the other hand, it was quite common to have a photo of a dead relative taken until the days when photography became so common that there was no need to have such a memory.
And I think many of the comments are more weird than the pictures.
posted by JR on 9-28-2009 at 3:28 am
I feel such sadness from this. How sad for the people who died and for the loved ones who feel compelled to do this to them. Some people have such strange mores. How sad. It is different when your own loved one dies. My son died and it was not like holding a dead body but like holding him when he was alive. Nothing repulsive at all. Maybe this is how these people felt at the time. But holding a loved one and posing and photographing them is far, far different. JM
posted by Judy Mount on 9-30-2009 at 4:22 pm
I have to admit to being a little ‘weirded out’ by these photos at first.
But I’m no different to the families who wanted that one photo of their loved one.
I lost a baby daughter in the 25th week of pregnancy, she died shortly after birth. And I can’t imagine not having photos of my little girl.
So to all of you people who are saying ‘ew ew ew ew’ and ‘creepy’ etc just think of the people out there who have to have either a post mortem photo or no photo at all of their child……
I know which one I’d choose.
posted by paula on 10-5-2009 at 9:42 am
For those who question the feasibility of posing a dead body for photos – Rigor mortis sets in shortly after death, but after being in the rigid condition from twenty-four hours to a max of eighty hours, the muscles relax and secondary laxity (flaccidity) develops. The length of time rigor mortis lasts depends on multiple factors, particularly the ambient temperature. The degree of rigor mortis can be determined by checking both the finger joints and the larger joints and ranking their degree of stiffness on a one- to three- or four-point scale. Many infant and child corpses will not exhibit perceptible rigor mortis. This decreased perceptible stiffness may be due to their smaller muscle mass.
So, one can pose a dead body for photos after rigor mortis passes and the proteins start to break down. But, the odors start to become pretty awful…
posted by Surfernick on 10-7-2009 at 1:19 am
I’m sure you’ve done the requisite research here, but just to be clear: In the early days of photography it took a long time to make an impression on the plate. While taking photographs of live subjects photographers would give braces and such, especially to children, to make sure the picture wasn’t blurred by the process… this is why people in victorian photos are so often propped up or sitting.
Children would often have closed eyes, as they’d be thought to fidget and glance about and blink excessively and suchlike.
Not saying anything in the atricle is wrong, just saying if it’s not certain (and it reads as though it isn’t) it’s a bit of a morbid view of things. Try setting a camera take a photo in half an hour, and see how your pose looks when it’s finally done… might be a bit wierd, rigid, or too relaxed.
posted by Simon on 10-8-2009 at 11:50 am
People can stop repeating the comment of them not being dead but alive and using braces. It has already been said and you’re – beating a dead horse – by saying it again.
posted by Tdave on 10-10-2009 at 12:38 pm
^bad pun intended. :o)
posted by Tdave on 10-10-2009 at 12:49 pm