In its infancy, the photograph appeared controversial for the masses, it seems from one our readings. It was something magical. That it was possible to cherish the image of a loved one, as they were at the moment of the photograph difficult to understand. What was it? How can it be? Was this, black magic? That an image could artificially be preserved, for a long time, possibly forever, was incomprehensible for the average person. I imagine, people were afraid of it, initially, but soon found that they could memorialize their loved ones with a piece of paper and that was too tempting to not be afraid. In the picture the person is alive, but now they are dead and all they have of the live person is a photograph, a way of holding on to their loved one. This is mentioned in the Ectoplasm reading:
"Portrait photographers soon took this association a step further, developing a lucrative trade in posthumous photographs or "memento mori." Grieving parents could console themselves with a photograph of their departed loved one, an image of the dead as dead that somehow worked to sustain the living."
Today, we are comfortable with preserving our images and have survived the "black magic" fear. The fear now is different, we fear that digitizing this craft will make the photograph obsolete. The craft got better, and rather than calling it a photograph, it is now called a digital image. There are more cameras now than ever before taking better images than ever before.
"Portrait photographers soon took this association a step further, developing a lucrative trade in posthumous photographs or "memento mori." Grieving parents could console themselves with a photograph of their departed loved one, an image of the dead as dead that somehow worked to sustain the living."
Today, we are comfortable with preserving our images and have survived the "black magic" fear. The fear now is different, we fear that digitizing this craft will make the photograph obsolete. The craft got better, and rather than calling it a photograph, it is now called a digital image. There are more cameras now than ever before taking better images than ever before.
Wow, a string of posts, hooray! Thanks for responding to the Batchen (and to the Bazin, in the sense that Bazin is also interested in photography's relation to death). You capture the uncanny nature of the photograph in its early days (think Balzac's fear), but isn't it interesting that memento mori photographs weren't considered bizarre or unusual in their day, but now we look at them askance. Today, it isn't considered appropriate to photograph the dead, except in very special cases (war or news documentation).
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