Stand Still While I Take Your Photo

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 5:23 am

I found this news story to be very strange-who wold want to take these kind of pics?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060216/od_ ... uneral1_dc

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.

"I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It's disturbing," a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

At one ceremony several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.

"I'm sure the deceased would never want their faces photographed," she said.

But others called it a form of a memento in the modern age.

"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper.

Ruth · Post by **Ruth** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 5:45 am

"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... "

Good point. Photos are nice, but I've aways felt uneasy about the obsession with getting everything on video, etc. Memory has a function too, shame we don't seem to trust it these days. I would have hated having somebody making a video of my baby's birth.

abbey · Post by **abbey** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 6:27 am

I went to a west Indian funeral last month and people were taking snaps of the deceased

in his coffin, i found this very strange and very sad, so disrespectful. :-1

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:02 am

I think sometimes you just have to allow that some other cultures feel at ease with their own methods and its ok if its different from our own. Half the world thinks Americas culture is shocking. Murder, crime, loose sexual morals etc.

For those, to live here would give a broader understanding of who we are, and vise versa.

jennyswan · Post by **jennyswan** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:48 am

I'm not sure whether it was in England or in Ireland but they used to make photo albums of the dead. It was a tradition. There is a mention of this in the film, 'The Others'.

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:54 am

Actually its my hobby. Collecting dead people pictures that is.

Its great fun for me and its a good way to keep me busy. It also seems to be a real conversation starter when I have people for dinner...rather have them over for dinner, the meals arent people its usually just regular stuff. Mashed potatoes and what not.

Sheryl · Post by **Sheryl** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 9:29 am

There used to e photos taken of the dead all the time. All the old west most wanted who were captured and killed has their photo's taken.

I've known people who take pictures of stillborn babies.

911 · Post by **911** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:13 pm

This is a very old tradition. It was very popular in my grandmothers time. I don't know why they did it but I think it was a final memorium to them. Also they could send the pics to far away relatives who could not make it to the funeral.

I don't even look at anyone in the casket, let alone take their picture. UGH! I will have a closed casket so no one will say how wonderful I look dead. As if I look better dead than alive. EEWWW, what if that's true?

They should start a line of beauty products, with the slogan. . . ."Look as good as if you were dead!"

:-3

Alfred · Post by **Alfred** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 1:03 am

"Some can't grasp 'reality' unless they take a photo and share it with others ... It comes from a desire to keep a strong bond with the deceased," social commentator Toru Takeda told the paper.

if these people can't grasp reality when they look at it and experience it with there own senses and feelings then whatever they get ahold of when they look at it passively through a picture will never be reality.