japanese funeral photography is as goth as it gets

from yahoo


Well, it's easy to get them to hold still...

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.

I'm sure the deceased really dont give a shit anymore

I guess it depends if they died quietly in their sleep after 3 hours in a beauty parlor, or just drove headlong into the back of a truck full of sheep heads.

Could be a hit party game though... "Identify the Dead Guy"

mG

my aunt does this and has as long as i can remember, it really freaked me out when i was little and still does.

especially after she took one at my great-grandpas funeral, and showed it to my mom and wanted to show it to me and jack and we were only about 10. My mom said she nearly hit her.

During the turn of the century when photography became wide spread, it was pretty popular here. A friend of mine has an old photo of his great, great, great uncle (or something) dead in a casket. Looks wicked cool too.

well... I dunno, it's probably weird, but photographing the dead isn't something new, it's been done in the military since photography exists, and I'll bet it's way less pretty... but oh well... if Japanese think it's cool...

Hmmm... as a professional photographer,
who detests the entire wedding end of the
business, I believe I have a new avenue
to pursue with this.

"Would you care for glossy or matte
and what about wallet size prints??"

http://www.uaf.edu/sda/graphics/shor...ox/funeral.jpg

I put the FUN back into funeral.

That's pretty macarbe...:s

I thought it would be funny that if your buried to make it your last request to keep you mbile in your pocket and then when the lid goes on and your carried away it goes of.
Everyone scrambles around embarrsed thinking it's there phone when really it's from beyond the grave..well your mate behind a gravestone messing around anyway.