« Funerary Photography »
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 5:50PM 
Our 21st century attitudes about life and death have set us at a cultural and philosophical distance from even our recent ancestors. My father, who lived to be 95, remembered as a child hearing older women say, as a common fact of life, how many children they had had and how many they raised – death was a given rather than an exception. Diaries from the past record death with an acceptance that surprises us.
Why would collectors want these funerary images? Nearly from the beginning of photography it was natural and traditional for families in some cultures to keep photos of death just as they did of life, so any collection that reflects how people have used the camera must have a few such images. Many immigrants brought the tradition with them to America. This image came from Colorado and it is likely that it was taken there.
A photograph is a visual record, but without a written record we are left with suppositions rather than facts.
Studying this image tells us quite a lot. This is a farming community, likely a settled and prosperous one that may have many members who came from Europe, but it may not have been established long enough that there is a fenced cemetery with rows of headstones; the emptiness of the landscape is striking.
The community is gathered in support of the family of the deceased (funerals are for the living even as they remember and honor the dead); the coffin rests on simple chairs from a dining room or kitchen; the minister stands at the foot with the church or community elders behind him; the immediate family is seated behind the coffin. The key to the scene is the chief mourner seated at the head of the coffin, overcome with grief and comforted perhaps by his brother or close relative; the deceased may be his young wife, but could be mother or father. The other faces tell us that this is an event that they have taken part in their entire lives, and no one, except the very young here, have been untouched by death.
There is also a tradition of photographing the dead, either alone or at a wake with family around them. I have one or two of the latter, but I am personally put off by the former because I prefer visual memories of people in life, so I don't own them nor will I post either on this site.
But the photo above is about life no matter how difficult it may be.
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