Eliminate the negatives

Charles No Comments
Charles
The hearse pulled up, the conductor opened up the back and one of the mourners whipped out a camera. Something gave her pause. She turned to me (I was the celebrant) and said, “Is this not good in your country?” She was German. I told her that convention counted for nothing, but… Then I got some nods from the others so I told her to go ahead. She got some good pics, and I am sure they all cherish them.

We snap away from dawn to dusk but we stop when we get to a funeral. Why so? Because we want it to leave no visible trace? Perhaps. If you want to shut your eyes tight to something, why on earth would you want to take photographs of it?

If you engage with a funeral you’re bound to want to commemorate it, and take away visible and material reminders. What better than photos?

I’m really pleased when I see cameras at a funeral. It doesn’t happen nearly enough. How many professional photographers out there specialise in it? Well, there isn’t the demand, is there?

I don’t know about that. I think that supply can create demand. Give people the idea, show them the way, and they’ll run with it.

I hope that’ll be true of In Our Hearts Images. Here’s a brave new venture. Remembrance photography, they call it. I like it. Good luck to you, Esther and David. I hope you will soon be flattered by many imitators – none near you, of course.

0 Comments

Leave a Reply

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>