photos – Museum of the Weird

Victorian photo of a dead woman gracefully reclining on a couch. — Postmortem photo of a young woman

Yesterday I talked about a couple celebrating their wedding in a funeral home. Today we turn to actually celebrating the dead in a way that seems to be lost.

You may think that photographing everything is a new phenomenon. Though they didn’t have social media, the Victorians captured many images of life, and death. The woman seen in this picture is dead. It was common practice to photograph the dead in elegant remembrances. These photos give the appearance of a loved one who has simply been caught napping.

Victorian postmortem photo of a woman in a black dress laying with her eyes opened — This postmortem photo has the woman’s eyes open.

In some cases they eyes were opened for the photograph, giving a weird effect. They stare out, strangely.

Victorian color photo of a young black boy standing behind his dead brother who lays on a couch — A brother looks over his dead sibling

It was common to have people pose in the photographs, a tableau of living and dead together. Some of these pictures are incredibly poignant, such as the brother looking over his sibling, apparently napping on the couch.

Victorian postmortem photo of a standing fireman with a drawin showing the rig to pose him — This rig allows the deceased to be posed in a standing position.

JohnOconnor-postmortem — A strange, standing photo of a man two years after his death

Of course, the dead did not simply recline. Elaborate rigs were designed to pose a corpse standing. Some of the photos resulting from this technology are pretty bizarre, as the dead stand proudly, or lean jauntily, sometimes surrounded by friends and family. The photo of John O’Connor shows him standing with a couple of gentlemen two years after his death! The card is from the Livingstons Undertakers. Is this a sample of their embalming work?

There are a few photographs that seem to show the dead hanging around for some time between their death and their burial. It’s possible that, since news and people traveled more slowly in this age that they kept the embalmed bodies on view for much longer before they were buried.

Victorian postmortem photo of a teenage girl sitting with handwritten notes around — Notes around this photo indicate the emotion associated with the death and the reluctance to let go

These images are weird and heartbreaking. The emotion is clear in the faces of loved ones included. It’s also interesting the number of children that appear. “Go over there, Timmy, and hold your sister’s cold, dead hand for the man.”

Of course, our modern society has become quite removed from the process of death. Perhaps they were all simply much closer to it, so it wasn’t unusual. I think these are all a good defense if you decide to take a selfie with the deceased at the next funeral.

I’ll close out with a few more striking pictures. I find them all fascinating. Many more can be easily found on the Internet.

A sweet-looking young girl lies as though napping.

A dead girl stares wildly as she poses with her family. Note the base of the stand at her feet.

The fine folks over at Daily Mail Online have collected a fantastic set of extraordinarily creepy photos from cemeteries, abandoned houses, in the woods, and even a few normal photos that were taken during the daytime, all with an unexpected guest!

The Daily mail writes:

These are the things that go bump in the night.

From murdered slaves to tortured hospital patients to forgotten sailors, ghost stories will send a shiver down most people’s spines.

But this collection of images will call into question everything you think you know about the spirit world… and how easy it may be to cross back over from the ‘other side’.

Paranormal investigators have spent decades painstakingly researching each photograph, debunking some and failing to disprove others.

Take the tale of the white lady of the Philippines.

Locals of Quezon City steer clear of Balete Drive at night as they say that a woman in white with long black tresses, face covered in blood, stands in the centre of the road, staring at oncoming vehicles.

Drivers try to avoid the street at all costs – but if they must pass, they pack their backseat with passengers because if there is one empty seat, an uninvited guest just might take it. In photographs, she appears as a bright, white light in the road, legs barely visible.

Or consider the story of Chloe the inquisitive slave.

Chloe lived at the house of Myrtle’s Plantation in St Francisville, Louisiana. She would often listen in on conversations she wasn’t supposed to, snooping in on her master’s private talks.

One afternoon, Chloe was caught. According to legend, her master cut off her ear as punishment.

For revenge, Chloe baked a cake out of oleander leaves, which are poisonous. She wanted her cruel master to taste it, but his wife and daughters beat him to it.

She fled the house, but was lynched by her fellow slaves. She still haunts the plantation to this day, listening in on the conversations of its visitors. Chloe can sometimes be seen hiding behind the doors, columns, or bushes on the residence.

But not all ghosts have been scorned.

An Australian woman named Mrs Andrews was visiting the grave of her daughter in a cemetery in Queensland, in the 1940s when she took a photo. Her daughter Joyce had died the year before at the age of 17. She was shocked to find a child in the photo that she did not recognise sitting on top of the grave.

Australian paranormal researcher Tony Healy visited the cemetery in the late 1990s to find out what had happened. He found that near Joyce’s grave, two infant girls were buried.

Read more and check out all the spooky specters caught on film over at dailymail.co.uk/news

Tag: photos

Photographing the dead

COLLECTION OF CREEPY PHOTOS