Other Dates

As a note: Any if all information related to post-mortem photography is very limited. The subject alone is slow in its evolution and the only particular changes throughout the years are that of medium, and purpose, i.e. personal photographs versus artistic and scientific photography.

1340 – Artists depict death in a Memento Mori fashion. Memento Mori is Latin for Remember your death. It is also translated to remember your mortality. I.e. this is the time in which people begin to recognize their mortality as individuals. This recognition is shown through paintings involving symbols involving death

1510-1511 – Leonardo Da Vinci breaks the mould and begins to document the human body from observation from the inside out. This was the first time ever that a person ever explored a deceased body. These sketches are the most well known recordings of the deceased human body.

1839 - Post-mortem photography begins shortly after the convenience of the Daguerreotype is created. This made commonplace portraiture easier, as well as post-mortem portraiture.

1839 – The most common use of post-mortem portraiture involves an emphasis of appropriate close-ups, often with the subject posed with their family. Children are the only people to be photographed and are often shown reclining on a crib or couch with a favorite plaything.

1840 – Props begin to be used more frequently with the increase of photographs taken.

1854 – Ambrotypes are patented, and used to a second type of image to choose from.

1855 – Adult portraits increase in popularity. Adults are posed with family members, either in a bed or sitting upright, propped with specially designed frames to hold their body upright.

1856 – Tintypes are patented and are used to photograph loved ones, primarily for the use f the image being place into a locket. Tintypes are am improvement upon the ambrotype.

1982 – Joel-Peter Witkin begins exhibiting his photographs of his disturbing photographs around the world, leaving viewers shocked.

2006 – Sally Mann shows her What Remains documentary as the Sundance Film Festival, showing her entire career.

Present Day – Post mortem photography is still practiced throughout the world today, mostly involving an artistic, yet shocking approach to it, i.e. Joel-Peter Witkin. The one other primary way in which people utilize it is to document the bodies of “incorruptible saints”, which withstand the test of time despite being deceased. Their bodies remain intact, and do not decay at the same rate as normal corpses.

References

I would like to recognize all of the resources I have used throughout this project.
From websites to books, they have offered much of the information provided for this project.
The images of the early 1900s postmortem photographs were used from:
Thenatos.com
Postmortem photography groups of Flick.com
Sally Mann’s Book What Remains, published by Bull Finch Press in 2003
The Life Before Death series is courtesy of wellcomecollection.com

Sally Mann: What Remains

Sally Mann - Self Portrait

For a portion of her What Remains book, Sally Mann ventured out to a Body Farm in which dead bodies are left out in specific environments to decay naturally outside. These bodies are put in different clothing, containers or are placed in various environmental locations, i.e. a bog or forest. Tracking the levels of decomposition, scientists can use this data to help in forensic and biological research.

Dividing the different series of photographs in Mann's book "What Remains", the text before the body farm sections is as follows:

"-when a human body
is drained of its broths and filled
again with formaldehyde and salts,
or unguents and aromatic oils, and pranked
up in its holiday best and laid out
in a satin-lined airtight stainless steel
coffin and stowed in a leakproof concrete vault-
I will know that if no fellow-creatures
can pry their way in to do the underdigging
and jiggling and earthing over and mating
and egg laying and birthing forth,
then the most that can come to pass
will be centuries-long whithering
down to a gowpen of dead dust, and not ever
the crawling of new life out of the old,
which is what we have for eternity on earth.

Galway Kinnell, "The Quick and The Dead"

All Images are from Sally Mann's "What Remains" Book

Life Before Death: Walter Schelz

This sombre series of portraits taken of people before and after they had died is a challenging and poignant study. The work by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta, who recorded interviews with the subjects in their final days, reveals much about dying - and living.
The following series of photographs with text came from Walter Shels' documentation of people lives before they died.

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Edelgard Clavey, 67
First portrait:
December 5 2003
Edelgard was divorced in the early eighties, and lived on her own from then on; she had no children. From her early teens she was an active member of the Protestant church. She contracted cancer about a year before she died, and towards the end she was bed-bound. Once she was very ill she felt she was a burden to society and really wanted to die
Edelgard Clavey



2 / 22



Second portrait:
January 4 2004
"Death is a test of one’s maturity. Everyone has got to get through it on their own. I want very much to die. I want to become part of that vast extraordinary light. But dying is hard work. Death is in control of the process, I cannot influence its course. All I can do is wait. I was given my life, I had to live it, and now I am giving it back"


Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao

3 / 22



Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao, 52
First portrait:
December 5 2003
"Death is nothing,” says Maria. “I embrace death. It is not eternal. Afterwards, when we meet God, we become beautiful. We are only called back to earth if we are still attached to another human being in the final seconds”

4 / 22



Second portrait:
February 15 2004
Maria’s thoughts on death are permeated with her belief in the teachings of her spiritual guru, Supreme Mistress Ching Hai; she believes she has already visited the afterlife in meditation. What Maria hopes is that she can achieve a sense of total detachment at the moment of death: she spends most of her time in the days leading up to her death preparing mentally for this


Elly Genthe Life Before Death

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Elly Genthe, 83
First portrait:
December 31 2002
Elly Genthe was a tough, resilient woman who had always managed on her own. She often said that if she couldn’t take care of herself, she’d rather be dead. When I met her for the first time, she was facing death and seemed undaunted: she was full of praise for the hospice staff and the quality of her care. But, when I visited again a few days later, she seemed to sense her strength was ebbing away.

Elly Genthe Life Before Death

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Second portrait:
January 11 2003
Sometimes during those last weeks she would sleep all day: at other times, she saw little men crawling out of the flower pots who she believed had come to kill her. “Get me out of here”, she whispered as soon as anyone held her hand. “My heart will stop beating if I stay here. This is an emergency! I don’t want to die!”


Beate Taube Life Before Death

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Beate Taube, 44
First portrait:
January 16 2004
Beate had been receiving treatment for breast cancer for four years, but by the time we met she had had her final course of chemotherapy, and knew she was going to die. She had even been to see the grave where she was to be buried
8 / 22



Second portrait:
March 10 2004
Beate felt that leaving her husband and children behind would be too difficult and painful if they were with her. At the moment of her death she was entirely alone — her husband was in the kitchen making a cup of coffee. He told me later that he was disappointed that he couldn’t be with her, holding her hand, but he knew this is what she had always said, that dying alone would be easier for her


Rita Schoffler Life Before Death

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Rita Schoffler, 62
First portrait:
February 17 2004
Rita and her husband had divorced 17 years before she became terminally ill with cancer. But when she was given her death sentence, she realised what she wanted to do: she wanted to speak to him again. It had been so long, and it had been such an acrimonious divorce: she had denied him access to their child, and the wounds ran deep.
Rita Schoffler Life Before Death

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Second portrait:
May 10 2004
When she called him and told him she was dying, he said he’d come straight over. It had been nearly 20 years since they’d exchanged a word, but he said he’d be there. “I shouldn’t have waited nearly so long to forgive and forget. I’m still fond of him despite everything.” For weeks, all she’d wanted to do was die. But, she said, “now I’d love to be able to participate in life one last time…”


11/22



Heiner Schmitz, 52
First portrait:
November 19 2003
Heiner was a fast talker, highly articulate, quick-witted, but not without depth. He worked in advertising. When he saw the affected area on the MRI scan of his brain he had grasped the situation very quickly: he had realised he didn’t have much time left.
Walter Schels/Wellc

Heiner Schmitz Life Before Death

12 / 22



Second portrait:
December 14 2003
Heiner’s friends clearly didn’t want him to be sad and were trying to take his mind off things. They watched football with him just like they used to do: they brought in beers, cigarettes, had a bit of a party in the room. “Some of them even say ‘get well soon’ as they’re leaving; ‘hope you’re soon back on track, mate!’” says Heiner, wryly. “But no one asks me how I feel. Don't they get it? I'm going to die!”

Gerda Strech Life Before Death

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Gerda Strech, 68
First portrait:
January 5 2003
Gerda couldn’t believe that cancer was cheating her of her hard-earned retirement. “My whole life was nothing but work, work, work,” she told me. She had worked on the assembly line in a soap factory, and had brought up her children single-handedly. “Does it really have to happen now? Can’t death wait?” she sobbed

Gerda Strech Life Before Death

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Second portrait:
January 14 2003
On one visit Gerda said, “It won’t be long now”, and was panic-stricken. Her daughter tried to console her, saying: “Mummy, we’ll all be together again one day.” “That’s impossible,’ Gerda replied. “Either you’re eaten by worms or burned to ashes.” “But what about your soul?” her daughter pleaded. “Oh, don’t talk to me about souls”, said her mother in an accusing tone. “Where is God now?”

Roswitha Pacholleck Life Before Death

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Roswitha Pacholleck, 47
First portrait:
December 31 2002
“It’s absurd really. It’s only now that I have cancer that, for the first time ever, I really want to live,” Roswitha told me on one of my visits, a few weeks after she had been admitted to the hospice. “They’re really good people here,” she said. “I enjoy every day that I’m still here. Before this my life wasn’t a happy one”
Roswitha Pacholleck Life Before Death

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Second portrait:
March 6 2003
But she didn’t blame anyone. Not even herself. She had made peace with everyone, she said. She appreciated the respect and compassion she experienced in the hospice. “I know in my mind that I am going to die, but who knows? There may still be a miracle.” She vowed that if she were to survive she would work in the hospice as a volunteer



Peter Kelling Life Before Death

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Peter Kelling, 64
First portrait:
November 29 2003
Peter Kelling had never been seriously ill in his life. He was a civil servant working for the health and safety executive, and didn’t allow himself any vices. And yet one day he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. By the time I met him, the cancer had spread to his lungs, his liver and his brain. “I’m only 64,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t be wasting away like this”

18 / 22



Second portrait:
December 22 2003
At night he was restless, he told me, and kept turning things over in his mind. He cried a lot. But he didn’t talk about what was troubling him. In fact he hardly talked at all and his silence felt like a reproach to those around him. But there was one thing that Peter Kelling followed to the very last and that was the fortunes of the local football team. Until the day he died, every game was recorded on the chart on the door of his room


19 / 22



Barbara Gröne, 51
First portrait:
November 11 2003
All her life, Barbara had been plagued by the idea that she has no right to be alive. She had been an unwanted baby: soon after her birth, her mother had put her into a home. But she had a strong survival instinct, and became very focused, she said, very disciplined in the way she lived. After much hard work, it seemed that life was at last delivering her a better hand

Barbara Gröne Life Before Death

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Second portrait:
November 22 2003
But then the cancer struck: an ovarian tumor, which had already spread to her back and pelvis. Nothing could be done. Abruptly her old fears returned: the familiar sense of worthlessness and sadness. At the end of her life, Barbara told me that she was overwhelmed by these feelings. “All my efforts were in vain”, she said. “It is as though I am being rejected by life itself"

Joel-Peter Witkin

Portrait of Joel-Peter Witkin - 1984

American Photographer Joel Peter Witkin was born in 1939 and is still making disturbing photographs to this day. Witkin’s emphasis on death and corpses makes his work hard to popularize in the modern world of photography. Witkin refers his particular “style” to be the result of a traumatic childhood experience in which he witnessed a young girl’s head get cut off due to a car crash.

Feast of Fools - 1990


Myself a a Dead Clown - 2007


The Kiss - 1982


Man Without a Head - 1993



Anna Akhmatova - 1998


Interrupted Reading - 1999


Ars Moriendi - 2007


Corpus Medius - 2000


Cupid and Centaur - 1992


Story From a Book - 1999

Death Photography - Early to Late 1900

Rattle

CDV, Massachusetts, 1870s.

Untitled Image - No information given.

Untitled Image - No Information Given - In this image it is hard to make out which figure is actually the dead one. It is in fact the woman in the middle. This is an instance in which the body is set up to appear alive once again.

Untitled Image - No Information Given - Thought this image is rare for its date (mid 1930s) like above, this image gives an almost life-like characteristic of the dead child. The eyes were painted onto the eyelids and the body was posed.

Untitled Image - No Information Given - Again, this image utilizes the fact that the subjects eyes were not closed at death. The subjects also appears to be holding a box of some sort.

Group photos were equally as popular as single portraits. The story with this image is tragic: The entire family was shot in their home and dumped into a nearby river, where officials fished the bodies out and eventually took this picture.

Untitled Image - No Information Given - cr. This is one of the earlier photographs in which the artist used oils to pigment the photograph to give a lifelike flush to the cheeks of the dead child. The eyes were also painted on.

Ossian

CDV; Olson & Oyloe photographers. Ossian, Iowa.

Egbert Smith

Premortem, CDV. The handwriting reads, "Egbert Smith, aged 1 year 1 month and fifteen days".
On the back is written, "Taken when dying. Son of Frank and Sadie (?) Smith."


Prairie Funeral

It's hard to see on this smaller scan, but the woman in the coffin's eyes are open.
Also notice the bored looking man on the wagon in the background.


Beloved Pet

Real photo postcard. Germany, ca. 1915


Matching Dresses

Sixth plate daguerreotype. ca 1850.


Wintrode

Uncommon shot of a baby in a coffin in a studio setting. Carte de visite.


Rocking Chair

Quarter plate ambrotype, ca 1850's.



Harry

Carte de visite, Scranton, PA.
The handwritten text on the back says, "Harry Courtright after he was dressed for his coffen".
Beneath that is also written, "With some of his hair".


Minnesota

Minnesota, 1905. The marks on the boy's face are fluid seepage, not defects on the photo.



Eliza Aughe

Eliza L. Aughe. Died, April 1885. Cabinet card. Frankfurt, Indiana.




Lightness

Sixth plate daguerreotype. Handwritten on the inside of the case is the word "Lightness".



Portsmouth

CDV. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, circa 1870.

The most fascinating things about postmortem photography are the ideas and reasons behind these kinds of photographs.
For some images, the subjects were posed using lifts and often coat hanger type mechanisms to keep the body from slumping forward or back. In other instances, depending on whether or not the subjects eyes were open or closed at death, either the eyes would be kept open, or they would be painted onto their eyelids, to give the body "life".
Artists were also given the job to tint the images with colored oils, giving the cheeks a pink flush to also reinforce a lifelike presence to them.