When is it appropriate not to take a photograph?

I would overtake

Maybe the magnificent send off was what the deceased had wanted and saved for!

A different dilemma I find is whether to overtake a funeral hearse and following cars when I just want to get on with my busy day!! We live between the church and the cemetery, which are about a mile and a half apart, quite near to the church on a narrow road.

We took photos at my Father's funeral. It was the first time myself and 3 siblings had been together for many many years and as well as being a sad time, it was also a happy time in so much as we all got to see and hug each other.
As for strangers funerals. I wouldn't mind if people took photos of a funeral procession that I was involved in providng they were not getting in the way or being a nusiance. I am sure my mind would be on other things and I would not think of it as disrespectful.

I once attended a funeral where someone was taking photos like it was a party. It was so uncomfortable. The last place or time I need reminding how sad I felt and looked.

Taking photos of other people's extreme situations, like having sex or grieving, or lying injured in the road, seems to me to be very wrong.

Well done Jeni for making the funeral a positive send off, which most people who have led full lives would surely want.
As for photographing funerals, this should be done with the consent of the mourning family. There is a growing trend to organise specialist funeral photographers to cover the event. Two funeral photographers have posted articles on the website My Last Song. www.mylastsong.com/advice/22474/148/107/funerals/funeral-planning/the-beauty-of-a-funeral and www.mylastsong.com/advice/16329/121/108/put-your-affairs-in-order/after-youve-gone/funeral-photography

Mmm - suspect we all have a prurient/nosy streak B - not so long ago that public hangings were popular entertainment round here.
I particularly remember some distressing coverage of a poor young couple whose baby had died (possibly of hypothermia in an unheated building) being chased up the road by those Spanish reporters.
In Uk that would only happen if you were a celeb...

When my MIL died it was very traumatic but FIL brought her body back to the house and the very large family spent several days holding a vigil. I did not see her in her coffin as I preferred to remember her pre-illness. My in-laws were both from families of 12 and all of them followed the same ritual.

NB that last wasn't referring to your post, jess.

Maybe Spaniards are more straightforward about the protrayal of life and death in all its guises, including the more gruesome ones.

We've all seem newspaper and TV pictures of accident scenes. Everyone calls that news. Why is it to be different if a private person does it?

The funerals of famous people are sometimes televised.

When does what is deliberately put on public display stop being public?

I used to watch a Spanish TV channel once - merciless in its footage of people dead on the roadside or sitting in the gutter crying because they have just lost someone in an accident.
I think there is a role for viewing the body of a close relative if you were not there when they died. It kind of brings it home to you that they have actually gone. Not still on holiday like the woman said last week about her son that was shot in the states. (But I guess if that works for her..)

As I don't believe in spirits that clearly does not mean me! My objection is to photographing people, without their consent, at times when they are clearly distressed. I don't care if the photographer has state of the art equipment with all the right gizmos .
What is socially acceptable has certainly changed, mostly for the better - cf smoking around others and drink driving, slavery, wife-beating, child abuse. I don't believe we have to passively accept changes which we think diminish dignity and the rights of others to their privacy.

I understand that, dorset. Just conversing around the subject .

In answer to your original question, my answer is Why not?, especially if the funeral cortège is quite obviously a "show" for people who are still alive. After all, I'm sure anthropologists have taken photos of funeral practices in cultures foreign to them for the purposes of the study and understanding of human behaviour and ritual. As far as I can see, this is no different – you could even say it was unusual enough to seem 'foreign'.

The thinking behind "taking photographs on certain occasions is wrong" seems to me to be not very far removed from the superstitious belief, still held by some humans, that if their photograph is taken, some of their soul or spirit is taken too.

If the funeral cortege is as spectacular as described I can't see a problem with taking a photograph. It's there to be seen and to record it is understandable. The family has obviously gone all out to give the deceased a good send off and if I were the family I'd be either chuffed to bits that people thought it good enough to photograph or embarrassed that it was OTT. Perhaps the family wished others to share in the celebration of their relative's life. We photograph weddings why not funerals?

I think bagitha most of us are just bringing up habits from the past - no one really does that now, it's not necessary - I think a funeral should be simple and a thanksgiving for someone's life. Taking photos of a stranger's funeral was my question

I've always wondered what the viewing of corpses was about. I'm guessing it was meant to be a reminder of the mortal coil. Do we need reminding?

The fact that technology allows us to do certain things (in this case take photographs almost anywhere) doesn't mean that those things should be done. It does mean, however, that they probably will be, so new 'norms' of what is acceptable to the majority will have to be worked out. One thing is certain, human society does not stagnate in a democracy and old 'rules' will change.

The human condition in Britain has, for the most part, improved over the last hundred years. It has certainly improved over the last five hundred or a thousand. Long may it continue to be open to new ideas and new practices.

I wasn't recommending former practices - just commenting on them. My family scandalised the neighbours in 1958 by not having my father's body on show so they could 'pay their last respects'. My mother thought it was ghoulish and the hearse just came to the door from the funeral parlour.
I was pressured into seeing my father-in-law lying in state and I found it very upsetting. He didn't look asleep, as so many people say, he looked as if he had never been alive.
I would prefer to remember someone I loved as alive and well.

I have no problem with people taking photos of funeral corteges, but I was thinking of those photos of grieving relatives that the press love to show. I think we would need to ask them how they felt about strangers photographing them.
I am not a great proponent of respect per se, as you have probably all gathered, just of sensitivity to the feelings of the bereaved.
I know it is possible to take photos easily on mobiles, but just because a thing can be done does not mean it should be done.

Cultural traditions. People keep em going by telling younger people or newcomers what they "should" do. they change over time, otherwise we would still be observing a long period of mourning in which only black clothes can be worn, along with lockets full of the dear departed's locks. Who would have thought a few years ago that popular music would have been played at funerals?
We have witnessed a huge change in the way people capture images with the coming of digital photography, and a phone camera in every pocket.
In a world where teenagers take pictures of themselves having sex and send them to their friends, we can expect that people will take photographs in many other unfamiliar contexts can't' we?

I'd say whoever planned the funeral had already decided it was going to be spectacular, so passersby taking snaps probably would have pleased them.

I did attend the open coffin funeral of one of my late Dad's old mates and during the half hour viewing period before the service one of the teenage nephews got out his cameraphone to take a pic. As he stepped back he looked at me somewhat apologetically and said his sister was overseas and she'd asked him to take some photos to email to her. He did it respectfully and for the right reasons, so to me it was quite acceptable. I've also attended funerals where people videoed the whole thing. That to me is just crass.

Goodnight all!

I remember when you not only closed the curtains but covered the mirrors as well!
When my husband died, I did none of those things and since it was a gorgeous warm day, the 'wake' (a boozy one ) was held in the garden and was great fun!
Just as he would have wanted!

I don't think it's necessary to do those things in order to show respect for the dead either.
Some of those customs came from superstition.

But, but, but......!

I've been following this thread and thinking "But why?"

I've been too frightened of being shot to post but I'm going to log out in a minute and go to bed.

Not doing all those things people used to do (why? what good does it do to do them? what harm does it do not to do them?) is not being disrespectful. Telling or expecting people to do or not do certain things – especially if they don't even know the person – because someone has died is just.... hesitate, hesitate.....

funereal fascism!

There. I've said it.

Oh and closing your curtains too. In Ireland and other R.C, countries one covered the mirrors in the house.