Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Years ago I saw an exhibit of photos at a church-turned-gallery - tiny tinted daguerreotypes of deceased persons, some sitting, eyes closed, after death - while portraiture became more accessible with the introduction of the medium, people did wish to have a commemorative image of their loved departed, and many had not been photographed while alive, so families splurged to make these after-death portraits. It may have been a flourishing business for a while in the 19th century. Certainly the fact the subjects could not move made the long exposures facile, quite a feat in clarity of focus for the photoprint of the times.
I was fascinated by the images, particularly the mannerism, fashion, history, and the allure of heart associated with death and dying, and experienced a mock strangeness in seeing these images collected together for 'arts' sake, in what seemed to me an out-of-context setting. However something did set quite comfortably about the whole aesthetic of the experience - though I had never seen the likes, it still felt surrepticious somehow. (as opposed to enlightening) Yet, I have never forgotten it. (footnote:in the 21st century it is a jackpot business only for paparazzi and clerical evidenciary material in policework)
fast forward to a broadened in-outlook and realize zing that the essence
was the lesson about the platform, or stairway, maybe a spiral one, of
intention and/or reward systems - how these can build into any slant of vision and equally how an episode of moral question and/or crisis brought on by art can only (sssshhhh) be good
