A controversial image stirs debate -- and reveals our squeamishness about death

AnCatDubh

A bit of a kaffufle has broken out over recent times over the Duggars and what some are calling a controversial image - article here - Warning if images of babies who have passed (died) upset you then best not to follow the link.

What are your thoughts to such matters? Do you think it to be disturbing or perfectly normal? Is it normal to have the images but a little strange to be sharing the images on the web. Is it a beautiful thing to have.

I know its full of emotion for people particularly if you've been touched by the subject matter so I hope this thread doesn't upset anyone here, but as photographers, how would you feel if you were to volunteer yourself to the 'as i lay me down to sleep' organisation. (they operate in Ireland afaik). Or have you ever been asked to capture a baby's passing? What was your experience?

Personally, I thought the images were incredibly sensitive, beautiful, powerful, and of sincere emotion. I have never been in that situation but if I were I would like to think I would have such wonderful images to celebrate, grieve over, to wonder over, to contemplate and perhaps even to share.

sineadw

My middle son died at birth. I have images of him in my house, and on a memorial site I have of him. I can't describe how important those images were and are to me. And they're almost universally important to all the bereaved parents I've ever met. I'm national facilitator for an organisation, so that's a lot.

We've removed ourselves from the thought of child death almost completely in our culture, mainly because infant mortality rates have dropped so dramatically in the last 100 years. It still happens every day though - there are about 500 stillbirths here every year (and countless miscarriages). It's a HUGE taboo to bring it up. We don't know how to deal with it anymore. It's very sad, for all concerned.

I've volunteered for now I lay (who haven't had a training session here in Dublin yet. Cork was too far for me to travel last time), and I think it's an awesome awesome thing to do for a family. I have polaroids and some shots I took myself with disoposable cameras. I'd have done anything to have some professionally taken. I can't urge people strongly enough to volunteer for this if you think you could do it.

I guess that's probably pretty much killed any debate there might have been on the subject I honestly don't understand why people would get upset at those pictures though?

artyeva

i can completely understand if a bereaved family would like a photo of a child who has passed away. absolutely. i think it can be a very important thing in the mourning and remembering process, particularly if there are other children in the family. i wasn't aware that there was an organisation that does this here in ireland. it must give bereaved families a great sense of... what i'm not sure... peace? closure? inclusion?

however, i personally don't think they should have distributed the photo at the memorial service. i think that may have been a misjudgement on their part. images like the one they took can be upsetting for people and i think they should have given people the choice whether to see it or not.

but people calling the mere fact that they took the photos in the first place sick and disgusting? chist on a bike... people behind keyboards can be so ignorantly cruel.


[i have my own views on one pair of people who choose to bring 21 children into the world, while cashing in on it by appearing on tv... but those are for another time.]

Zillah

I think the main reason people are reacting badly is because the shot of the feet looks a little like the person is plucking it up the way one might an object. If it was just the hand shot I bet people wouldn't complain nearly as much.

Some people are just squeemish anyway, the slightest thing will set them to complaining hysterically.

Borderfox

Its a storm in a teacup, nothing wrong with the pictures at all. I am sure they will be beautiful memories in the future for them coming to terms with what happened. Modern media is so censored and shelters the audience from reality. Its ok to show an Apache pilot killing a group of journalists but if its a child then there is outrage (I am not comparing them directly)

EyeBlinks

Personally, I'd be quite open to take that type of subject and would gladly get involved with that organisation.

For it to succeed though I think you need to be detached from the process, meaning not know anyone involved. I recently had to photograph a person (adult) who had died and found that very difficult as I knew them.

I reckon though that funeral photography is something we'll see more of in the future. I would personally love to get involved in reportage style funeral photography.

magicbastarder

artyeva wrote: »

however, i personally don't think they should have distributed the photo at the memorial service. i think that may have been a misjudgement on their part. images like the one they took can be upsetting for people and i think they should have given people the choice whether to see it or not.

yeah, the concept of being handed a photo of a dead body at a memorial service is one that people would not have had much time to incorporate into their worldview.
it obviously wouldn't happen at a funeral of someone who lived to a ripe age, but that obviously has the factor that there would be photos available of that person in good health.

i'd be far more worried about people having that many kids than with the issue at hand.
and the fact that it's a family who are already celebrities further muddies the water about the publicity surrounding this.

suzzi

i've never heard of the duggan's (which is not a bad thing i'm guessing) but i would have no problem with the photograph of their baby...HOWEVER...it would have to be personal photographs for immediate family only, i just wouldn't want to share this so terribly personal image on a social network etc.

Effects

I think it's pretty clear that they aren't a normal family.

liamo

AnCatDubh wrote: »

What are your thoughts to such matters? Do you think it to be disturbing or perfectly normal? Is it normal to have the images but a little strange to be sharing the images on the web. Is it a beautiful thing to have.

It's not something I had considered before and, if I had been asked, I probably would have raised an eyebrow.

However, having seen the images and having had a little think about it, I seems to me to be the most natural thing in the world to do (and to want to do). I thought the images were beautiful - particularly the little hand - and very, very moving.

I have no issue with sharing of photos of this nature. I do, however, wonder about the motives for the sharing in this specific instance. If they were commercial in origin I believe the parents have cheapened the brief life and sad death of a child.

FoxT

I , too, have photographs of a dead child - our third son, who died as a toddler, back in 1999. Having these photographs definitely helped our family through our grief. While I have not looked at them in some time, it still comforts me, to know they are there.

Death in general, & child death in particular, are taboo in western society. Broadly speaking, I welcome the lifting of the taboo of infant death - an issue that affects a lot of people.


I do not like the thrust of this website though, which seems to be using these pictures to promote a specific ethos.

- FoxT

sineadw

Just an FYI, NILMDTS are holding a training day in Dublin in February. Hoping to be there.. http://www.photographers.ie/2012/01/now-i-lay-me-down-to-sleep-training-day-volunteers-needed/

BlastedGlute

This is bizarre. But as above, they're clearly not a normal family, so this is probably fairly normal by their everyday standards.

Fenster

Something something vagina mumble clown car.

Okay, somewhat callous. I've been in and around some of these large American families and they genuinely do believe that they have a god-given duty to pop out as many children as physically possible. First you deride them, then you feel sorry for them, then you realize the earnest seriousness of their drive and have to respect them a little.

One of the things you start to figure out is that they love their children and love having children. They think a big family is great. We'll probably a see a rake of skeleton-in-the-closet confessions by children of the family in the next decade or two, but that's then and this is now.

Putting up a picture of your dead child is strange, but not all that unusual; there is a booming, if morbid, trade in vintage pictures of mothers posed with their dead babies. Ireland seems to be the exception to this sharing. The rule here is that We Don't Talk About Stuff:

Don't talk about stillborn children.
Don't talk about abuse in the home.
Don't talk about mental illness.
Don't talk about a marriage gone bad.
Don't talk about dad's alcoholism.
Don't talk about your son leaving the church.
Don't talk about the fact he's had children with a foreigner.

I am admittedly a little bitter, and occasionally shocked at how shocked some people get when I speak openly of trying to commit suicide. I have two wonderful little children, and it would never be my choice to circulate a posthumous photograph of either of them, but I can understand the impulse and and can't blame them for it.

If I feel weird for anyone in this situation, it is the photographer: I mean, most of these hospital baby photographers are basically just kids working part-time for commission. These kids have to go in there and deal with grieving family and direct them in posing with yes, a dead baby.

Effects

I feel sorry for anyone brainwashed by religion that much.

sineadw

@fenster, you have to have special training here before you're allowed near a grieving family in a hospital. That's what the training day is about. Not sure what it's like (obviously, haven't done it yet ) but from what i've gathered of the org the last thing they'd do is let some kid loose. Thankfully.

Fenster

sineadw wrote: »

@fenster, you have to have special training here before you're allowed near a grieving family in a hospital. That's what the training day is about. Not sure what it's like (obviously, haven't done it yet ) but from what i've gathered of the org the last thing they'd do is let some kid loose. Thankfully.

My experience was with the newborn photographers specifically in Summerlin Hospital in Las Vegas. They are kids working part-time for a franchise and while I'm sure that they have sensitivity training (okay...some training. I basically have to shove her out our room because she wanted to sell us some overpriced package) and would comport themselves correctly. I was commenting more on the sheer weirdness of being brought into that kind of situation as an eighteen year old part-time photographer.

Feileacain

What ever about that family and their believes...... having photo's of your baby that has passed is just a wonderful gift to have. We as bereaved parents get such a short time to make as many memories of our child as possible and the service that Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep provide bring such comfort to parents, you wouldn't believe it. I'm a father to 6 kids, 2 living and 4 who have passed and what I wouldn't give to have the gift of those photo's , all be it that we have tons of photo's as it is but when we lost our girls we couldnt think straight not to mind think of what photo's should have been taken. I'm part of the charity https://www.facebook.com/pages/Feileacain-Stillbirth-and-Neonatal-Death-Association-of-Ireland/114951088552179 that are training the photographers and I can't speak highly enough of the work they do, its a pity their isn't more out there that offer their time and service FREE of charge.

smash

People grieve differently. Nobody has the right to judge!