Seeing Shades: Death in Photography
Taught by J.R. Pepper
JR Pepper is a lecturer, photographer and self described 'professional eccentric'. She holds both a BA and an MA in art history specializing in Surrealism and spirit photography. Her artwork has been seen in various gallery shows and publications including Haunted America: FAQ by Dave Thompson, Vice.com and Musee Magazine. She has spoken at New York Anime Festival, New York Comic Con, Tokyo in Tulsa, The Morbid Anatomy Museum, The Odd Salon, The Dead Ladies Show and is an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College. She currently works as digital imaging specialist at The Burns Archive and is a tour guide at Green-wood Cemetery. Her book Buried Boston: America's Revolutionary Necropolis, documenting Boston's burying ground and cemeteries is due out in 2024.
image credit: Bill Wadman
Modern Americans tend to shy away from death and the idea of photographing the dead or the dying is decidedly taboo. However, this was not always the case and at some points was even fashionable.
Victorians were obsessed with death and used photography as a means to document people in their last moments and collected postmortem photographs of the deceased. Meanwhile in the 1860’s, photographers like William Mumler and William Hope, claimed they were capable of photographing the ghosts of people’s lost loved ones.
Today, however; such photographs are considered unthinkable, however there are modern photographers who use the lens as a means to show death for what is and even show the beauty of that which most would chose not to see. In this discussion we will examine the way that photography has recorded the darkest and last of life’s chapters.
