MetaFilter posts tagged with death and photography

Wisconsin Death Trip

Kattullus — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:22:36 -0800

Charles Van Schaick was a photographer in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the late 19th and early 20th Century. His work was made famous by Michael Lesy in the book Wisconsin Death Trip in which the photographs were juxtaposed with local newsreports of murder, suicide, disease, insanity, animal mutilation and other calamities plus the occasional non-morbid event. Flickr set of photos used in Wisconsin Death Trip. Some of the texts from Wisconsin Death Trip. Robert Birnbaum interviews Michael Lesy about Wisconsin Death Trip and other things. Over 2500 photographs by Charles Van Schaick owned by The Wisconsin Historical Society. [Warning: Some of the photographs are of deceased infants]

"What a comfort it is to possess the image of those who are removed from our sight..."

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:47:33 -0800

Victorian mourning photography, featuring the recently departed in realistic poses.

Just imagine the hijinx if they'd had Facebook.

grapefruitmoon — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:07:26 -0800

Gather 'Round the Cadaver! : A new "coffee-table" book, Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine is a new collection of photographs documenting what happened when bored medical students of the early 1900s met the camera.

Un-quiet photography by Jeffrey Silverthorne.

grapefruitmoon — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:40:51 -0800

Photographer Jeffrey Silverthorne takes beautiful, quiet photos of disquieting subject matter. His early works included two series on morgues and transvestites. [nsfw, via]

Everyone's baby

hadjiboy — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:25:28 -0800

If you were a parent, and had lost your child during birth--what would you do? Grieve--yes; mourn, of course; photograph your dead child... ? WHY? [please don't click if you're a soon-to-be-parent] It has been done in the past, and now Cheryl Haggard and Sandy Puc have been helping families with the grieving process by giving them this one last opportunity to remember their babies for eternity.

March '79 to October '97: One Mans Polaroid Collection

MikeonTV — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:23:33 -0800

What does a man do during the last 20 years of his life? We learn what every day was like for this unnamed soul who lived through the death of John Lennon, was there for the biggest television experience ever and who saw many presidents inaugurated and witnessed some of them shot.
It might have been because of the holidays or just to fit in but sometime around the early 80's he began smoking. Throught the 90's his health declined and eventually the illness took over.
What must we think about the Star Trek fan with a surreal taste for art and who loved pasta? I'm not sure, but I am certainly thankful for the images.

Remember Me

chunking express — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:18:37 -0800

Remember Me. A multimedia documentary about one family's struggle to deal with the loss of a parent. This series is the 2008 Pulitzer winner for feature photography. It's kind of intense.

Slipping the mortal coil

blue_beetle — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:41:45 -0800

Life Before Death - (from the site) "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."

matteo — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 08:38:36 -0800

"Everything is foggy. Everything is not clear. He was alive when we got to the other side. And now I have brought him back dead. Whatever hopes we had, that's where they ended."
The Summer of the Death of Hilario Guzman (BugMeNot)

Memento Mori

grapefruitmoon — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 08:34:43 -0800

Memento Mori : both in Europe and The United States, post-mortem photography [pdf] was both reminder of and coping mechanism for death in the 19th century.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

blaneyphoto — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 20:14:10 -0800

Their task may be depressing, but the generosity of their work is inspiring and hopefully thereputic. The photographers who are working with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep provide their services on a volunteer basis to help families over come the grief of losing an infant. If you're a professional photographer interested in being involved, they're seeking volunteers.

matteo — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:42:39 -0800

"To all our sisters who have committed suicide or who have been institutionalized for their rebellion."
Throughout her career, but especially in her latest and most wrenching work— Sisters, Saints, & Sibyls, the 39-minute three-screen lamentation that is a duel memoir of her sister's suicide at the age of 19 and her own mortifications of the flesh and battles with addiction—the photographer Nan Goldin has been one of the great living suicides of recent art history... Charles Baxter wrote that novelist Malcolm Lowry captured "the way things radiate just before they turn to ash." At her best Goldin does this too.

it's frighteningly boooooootiful

jonson — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 22:21:09 -0800

Gallery of funeral art. On this halloween weekend, a brief collection of photographs of tombstone carvings & other cemetary decorations.

Good journey, Joop.

VelvetHellvis — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 09:10:04 -0800

Good journey, Joop. "Joop was our handsome goodhearted 'boerenfox' (farmer's fox terrier). For three good years, he lived with us in the small town of Paterswolde, The Netherlands. We found Joop in 2002 in an animal shelter in Zuidwolde. Joop was a canine supermodel." The Dog Log shows Joop's life in pictures and his human's in words. Joop passed away August 8, 2005 from cancer and has quite a following on Flickr.com. Being the owner of a 14-year-old dog, the display of support really touched me and the photos are beautiful.

Don't fear the reaper

LittleMissCranky — Fri, 18 Apr 2003 13:28:26 -0800

Death photography Since Good Friday is pretty much all about death, how about a look at memento mori, otherwise known as postmortem photography? Some are heartrending, and many are quite artistic. Of course, there's an ugly side to this, too.