Victorian Post-Mortem Photography

I love looking at photo albums. They do not even have to be my family photos. My Favorite are the very old but well kept that show people who look like statues and usually show no feeling behind there eyes. Is that because of the old Fashions cameras lack of capability to capture it, or did people just have colder hearts in 1890?

I have spent loads of time just looking at pictures and trying to figure out the people in it and what the details around them mean. In a picture we usually pose so it's easier to hide who we are, but never the less under that good posture we are solely trying to have the picture be a memory were no one sees anything bad or remembers anything horrid. I don't like unpleasant pictures I never have. Bloody, gore pictures in the newspaper of someone who died, It does not thrill me. But there is one rather odd morbid, old fashioned, extinct for most type of picture that makes my eyes go wide with wonder. They are called death portraits. Yes the pictures of people in old times propped up with there eyes closed, even children and babies I have seen of these. And although your first instinct is to be repulsed. Down inside you understand. The reason death portraits were so common was because in old times they were not always allowed to cry by accident in public so you dealt with grief in your own way. And sometimes that way created some rather unusual and Morbid scenes in life. Sometimes perhaps more morbid then the Death of the person in the photograph itself.
It can be so sad looking at these types of photos but sometimes informative or sometimes just plain creepy, if your lucky you will see one that makes you smile. The peaceful looks on there faces can sometimes make you smile, because you know whatever horror they went through in life is over and that is why they look so peacefully asleep. -Amanda