Memento Mori: The Birth of Post-Mortem Photography

Abstract

In this article, I will be focusing on the origins and characteristics of this type of photography, mainly as it unfolded in Britain and the United States. Three texts that I employ in order to draft the origins and transformation of post-mortem photography in Britain and the United States, from its beginnings in 1839 to our time are: Stanley Burns’s Sleeping Beauty (1990), Jay Ruby’s Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America (1995), and Audrey Linkman’s Photography and Death (2011).  These works coincide with one idea: photographing loved ones who have passed away, as well as the general response to this practice have evolved, as have the notions and sensibilities towards death itself. This study poses two fundamental questions, when faced with a dread for this custom: 1. why is photographing our dead so frightening and appealing at the same time?; and, 2. in a society that has become desensitized to viewing images presented by the media of mangled bodies, of grotesque products of crime or war, why is the notion of photographing a deceased, loved one so offensive?  After all, photographing our loved ones who have passed away, is as old as photography itself.