- wakingphotolife: / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Do any if you take pictures at funerals? I do not and think it is so morbid. Now I realize that people enjoy doing that but those pictures just aren’t any that I would ever want to see again. I don’t understand this particular obsession and I never really will. Well some of my family loves to takes pictures. I mean they are the lets all stand right at the casket (or urn) and take pictures with everyone, not lets have a group pic outside (which I am okay with.)
There were several times when this seemed so much more inappropriate to me. At my aunt’s service at the end my uncle (her husband) walked up to her photo (she was cremated) and just broke down. So my other aunt (his sister) decides she needs a picture at that moment. I mean really? He was so heartbroken and she was like the paparazzi snapping away. I was thinking, is he really going to want to see that particular picture again?
Another time was after my uncle’s rosary when for whatever reason they brought my aunt’s remains along. They placed her box up there next to my uncle’s urn and starting snapping away again. My sister in-law asked where do we go and J said ” we can either go in the family room or join in the pictures.” We went to the family room. It seemed safer!
How do you feel about pictures at funerals?
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I took a couple pictures of my little brother when I was younger ( farther away because in close I could see that the embalming wasn’t done particularly well. I took it for me because I would never get to see him again and we had only had him for a month( all of which he spent in the hospital). I don’t really care for it now that I am older and would rather have pictures of the family & friends reliving happy moments about the deceased than any pictures of the deceased person.
I can understand that.
I think it depends on what people are comfortable with. Some people want to commemorate the moment of mourning, because it’s an important part of the grieving and recovery process. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable taking photos of a funeral, unless family specifically asked me to. Since I am a photo enthusiast, this is a great question to think through. I have some friends that had people photograph what they knew would be a still-born birth, but it was a way for them to remember the moment. Another way to think about it, in regards to funerals, is that some people see funerals as a way to just mourn the loss of their loved one’s, but others also see an element of celebration; especially, when their the loved one they lost knew Jesus.
You made some great points Jimmy and I can see taking pictures of a still-born baby. For the parents that would be the only pictures of the baby ever. I know how hard losing your child is. I guess I just wish my family wasn’t so photo happy.
I am with you on this one. I don’t think I would ever take a picture of the person who passed away. When our little girl died at 4 months if anyone would have thought of taking a picture of her, I think I would have gone crazy. I have been to many rosary’s and funerals and I don’t think anyone took a single picture at the service. I am fine with it after the service at someones home or something.
Don’t come to any with my family members then because they are avid picture takers. Like I said there were just times that seemed so inappropriate.
It seems really strange to me to take pictures at funerals. I would not want to look a picture of someone as they were dead. You want to remember them alive at least that is how I feel about it.
I’m with you, it just seems odd to take pictures at that particular time. However, when we interred my mom’s ashes with a small ceremony at the cemetery, my dad asked me to take a few pictures of him next to my mom’s photo and headstone. He’s not asked to see it and it gives me a little shiver when I skip across it in my picture files, but I’ve kept it in case he ever wants to see it.