Printing/taking photos of open caskets

I'll take any open casket over the funeral of a baby. I've been to one, and it was the worst, worst, worst kind of funeral to see. The casket was so tiny, yet the baby only needed about a third of the space, if even that. It was terrible. I'll never, ever forgot the feelings I had that day. At the burial, instead of using the hydraulics to lower the casket, one of the cemetery workers lowered it by laying on the ground and very gently placing it into the hole. At that point I buried my face in my hands and sobbed. I didn't think I was going to be able to stop.


As per how this pertains to this thread. The family did take photos at the funeral, because it was a very late in the pregnancy miscarriage, and these would be the only photos for them to have of the baby.

 

There's something about an open casket that helps jolt you out of the "denial" phase and on to the next phase of the grieving process. The worst moment of my life was putting my late fiancee's engagement and wedding ring back on her finger right before they closed her casket.

Definitely not the way I was planning to put that ring on her finger. But those final moments with her were a kick-start to my healing process.

 

I'll never forget the day my grandpa died. My grandma was the first to go back to the OR (he died on the operating table during a quadruple bypass) and eventually I went back there. It had only been an hour or so since he passed, and they had him covered up from his neck down because I guess they hadn't sutured him up just yet.

But I'll never forget touching his face and it being so cold. I touched his hand at the funeral, and that's something I'll never do again.

 

Not to be ghoulish, but what's with the hand thing everybody keeps talking about?

 

He was on injured reserve with a broken left forearm.

 

No, no. Not that. I meant everyone says how horrible it was to touch a dead person's hand.

 

Please get some help.
You vowed to never go to another funeral. Cmon. It is a big part of life to a.) go recognize somebody's life and console your friends who knew this person and family members of that person if you know them. If you don't go to the funeral you can't console anybody/and or celebrate that person's life with that person's family members. It means a lot to the family to have people at the funeral, close friends or just acquaintances of the person.
Not meaning to criticize you. You said you had issues. But get over this one. Funerals are important on many levels, and one of them is usually the pastor or whomever reminds the people in the audience not to take life for granted.

As far as the picture ... geez have we stooped this low to run open casket photos. Editors and photographers just say no to the urge to run them. It's tasteless, really is.

 

Although I never liked open casket funerals and it's not part of my religion's tradition, when my grandfather died over 10 years ago, I was very sorry I never got to see him one last time.

So when my dad died last year, and even though I was with him and was holding his hand when he died, I felt very, very strongly about wanting to see him again at the funeral. They had the open casket in a side room and when I walked in to see him, it was like there was a magnet repelling me AWAY from the casket. It took me a few tries to walk close to it, but you what? I'm glad I got to see him one last time. I didn't feel closure or anything like that, but for whatever reason, it was important to me and I'm glad I insisted.

 

So the industry runs photos of people sobbing in front of the remains of their house destroyed by hurricanes or tornadoes, car accidents where someone sits on a curb in shock or anguished tears, a little boy or girl at a military funeral.

We see continuous (too many) replays of a guy's leg being snapped in a gruesome way from every angle, and then the 'highlights' again on newscasts. Photos are published of shooting victims covered by a sheet soaked with blood, or a mangled car covered by a blue tarp with a 17-year old still inside and maybe a foot showing under the tarp.

And a dead body in a casket, even in a background, is too much?

 

Yes it's too much. If you want to discuss whether those other things are also tasteless, I'd be willing to say most of those things are tasteless as well.
Like somebody said, it's not like you've been cheated out of anything as a reader if you don't get to see the open casket photo.
In this case the family must have been OK with it however if they let photographers in the ceremony. It still makes our profession seem sleazy when we run pictures like that. It's not like running photos like this will save this business.

 

When we (the industry) publishes a photo of an anguished woman clutching a photo and crying in front of rubble that used to be her neighborhood, we call it news when the public says a line has been crossed.

Henry's funeral is news. Photos of an open casket are news.

I wouldn't have used a photo of him alone in the casket but would have strongly considered the one of the daughter beside it. It has impact, emotion and makes the reader take notice. That's what news does. The industry publishes photos on occasion of firemen bringing bodies out of rubble or natural disasters, photos that may be questionable but are argued for as news by editors standing their ground.

A casket photo shouldn't be immediately dismissed as icky just because we have issues about funerals or touching dead bodies (I don't do that, either, BTW).

I'm just not seeing the difference between questionable photos from natural disasters or accidents and an open casket of a dead body. To dismiss all of those as tasteless, well, you're getting into the "only positive news" argument IMO.

 

Bullshit.
You can cover the funeral without a picture of him in the casket.

My only positive take on the issue is if a photographer was in there, the family must have wanted it. And you in favor of the photo I'm sure aren't in favor of it because the family wanted it. You think it is our right to cover what we want when and where we want, etc.
The family by the way could have prevented photographers from being in there. What would you do in that case, demand entry because it is "news?"