Adding deceased relatives to photos

Thankyou loveocc and Cossy

We have a photo of my father, his siblings and their mother and in the background, on the wall, is a photo of their deceased father. I find it quite sweet that they wanted to include him in the photo.

In the mid 19th century there was a fashion for (very recently) deceased people to be dressed and posed with family members for one last picture www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36389581

rafichagran

I had a stillborn son, he was washed,dressed and stunningly beautiful. I can still see that beautiful face, I did not want a photograph and still would not, I would find it uncomfortable.

💕

rafichagran You do have a picture. It is in your heart for ever.

I had a stillborn son, he was washed,dressed and stunningly beautiful. I can still see that beautiful face, I did not want a photograph and still would not, I would find it uncomfortable.

What people do is up to them, but it changes your family history and could be very confusing for the generations to come who inherit your family photographs. You'd perhaps encounter conversations like ' so and so died in 19**, how are they in that photograph all these years later?' It's not something I would do, a person has their place in history.

Photographing a still born child - yes of course I fully understand that. However adding decreased relatives to a family photograph is not for me.
I have photographs of family members taken when they were here with us and that is enough for me. Having said that it is a very personal issue and if adding a deceased member of the family to a photograph brings peace then why not ?

I have a friend who is all in favour of doing this. They had a family wedding and had their father 'added'. I thought it a bit strange really. I would have displayed a nice photo of the dad alongside a wedding photo.

Mmm just seen the date of OP, why and how do these pop up?

I think it up to each individual to deal with awful grief of losing a baby in their own way.

It’s not for me, the babies in some of the photos are very very pale, sometimes with blue lips and I’m afraid it’s all too much for me.

But whatever gets these families through this terrible grief.

I once worked with a family who had a massive family canvas with their still born baby right in the middle, I’m sorry to admit it gave me the creeps.

A couple of years after the tragic death of my youngest child at the age of 25, I was sitting in a local cafe and got chatting with a man who was sitting at the same table. Nice person and somehow found myself telling him about that tragedy and how it had somehow been emphasised in the wedding photos of two of his siblings. The one, before - with all my six adult children, and the one afterwards with just five.

We exchanged phone numbers - but I was very surprised when I got a phone message from him offering to 'add in' my dead son to the more recent wedding photo. I know it was meant kindly, but the idea horrified me. It would have been so very wrong.

Totally different to having a photo of a much loved stillborn baby. Do think that could help in the long-term grieving process. In mine and in the home of all my children, there are photos of my dead son and all the grand children (all except the eldest born after his death), know so much about their Uncle George.

I can understand the pictures of still born babies and those whose lives were very brief and them being on display.

But feeding pictures of the deceased into other photos of the above, like that illustrated above, feels really peculiar. The one possible exception I can think of that I could understand is, where the deceased person had died very close to the event and had been really looking forward to it.

Our mother died 3 weeks before my sister's wedding. She was in her 80s and not in the best of health. The wedding was to be a quiet registry office wedding and our father insisted everything went ahead as planned. Had there been any formal photographs, I could see a point in adding our mother because her death had been so recent, and she had so looked forward to the even - but even then, I am not sure.

I think it is very healthy to href="https://blog.gradguard.com/2019/02/27/how-to-travel-around-europe-on-a-budget/">have</a> a picture in your home!

I also like to watch the photo editing guides on YouTube, so this list was helpful to me fixthephoto.com/blog/retouch-tips/top-10-youtube-channels-study-editing-free.html

I always say I have five children, three are still with me two are angels. I didn’t have pictures taken, it never occurred to me, and it was never offered, though I did hold my last son for a few minutes, I didn’t want longer, though I now some people do. I knit “angel blankets” for the local hospital so the tiny babies have something special to be wrapped in if the parents wish, they are always asking for more so people must use them.

It would never occur to me to add people to photos, they aren’t there, maybe that sounds hard but they’re not, only in people’s memories. My dad use to take photos and then digitally change them, it was in the early days of photoshop, he use to add a boat, or remove a tree, make the day look sunny that sort of thing, but to me, if it’s overcast so be it, your recording the time, it should be how it was, not how you would like it.

It's one thing remembering how the deceased looked like/ were in their lives, but to me it's distinctly macabre to photograph them in their deceased state.

The Victorians didn't add just deceased children. This 1937 double portrait in The Scottish National Gallery includes a deceased wife.
www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/3024/john-gibson-lockhart-1794-1854-and-charlotte-sophia-scott-mrs-lockhart-1799-1837-post-humous?search=double%20portrait&search_set_offset=17

So that's why pics of my ancestors look as though they've been dug up------they probably were !!

I too find it macabre, but if it gives any sort of comfort to the bereaved...

We were recently in Amsterdam, where in one of the big museums, maybe the Rijksmuseum, there was a painting of an obviously newly dead baby of maybe 6 months, lying in its cradle.
I dare say that in the days before photography the parents felt the need of a lifelike reminder, and who could blame them? So sad to see, though.

I think this is a good idea, as well as an interesting experience if you're into photo editing!

Ah! I did wonder, my goodness how harrowing and all not so very long ago. Yet your Mum never forgot her baby all her days Purpledaffodil

Thanks Jamjar1. Both my parents are dead now, so I cannot ask which cemetery my sister was buried in and do not have any exact details of dates or name. How lovely that you were able to help your mother like that.

I suppose that one reason for the victorians having their dead relatives photographed would be that they wouldn't have had any photo's of them previously but wanted something to remember them by.

I can quite understand someone wanting a photo of their stillborn baby, but I think it would be something I would keep for myself rather than displaying it.

Purpledaffodil if the baby was buried in a local council cemetery you may be able to pinpoint the spot. If not for your Mum now for you, if you wished to. My Mum's stillborn baby was buried with other infants, 3 deep. The council were able to give me the exact position and it's just a neatly mown little green space amongst gravestones. My sibling was still born in the fifties but I would have thought there were records much earlier. Although not well at that point my Mum visited the grave with me and was relieved it was not, as she had always feared, a corner covered in shadow, forgotten. She never told my Dad she had visited, they just could not bring up any conversation of their first born between them.
I found the link to the Victorian pictures very moving, very sad but as mentioned Victorians were used to death, it wasn't hidden away, it didn't harden them, those poor parents and siblings but it was all around. My very elderly neighbour, now long dead was one of those women who would wash your deceased relative, lay pennies, dress the relative for you. This would have been in the 20's - even 50's early 60's I think.