The first time I looked at a post mortem photo was when I was a little child and saw it in a photo album of my grandparents. Hidden behind a family photo was a photo of a little baby in a casket taken around the 1930's. Post mortem photography was very common in the 19th century because death was a part of every days life and specially the child mortality rate was very high.. Often it was the only photo taken of a child. When a child had passed away the photographer was called to the house or the child was brought to the studio. Every effort was made to let the child look asleep in bed or couch or even look alive and posed sitting in a chair. The child, dressed in a nice dress or outfit, was often accompanied by a toy, doll, flowers and sometimes a dog. In some cases the photographer was asked to paint open eyes over the closed eyes. Now we can think of it as morbid but all of this was done with much love and respect for the deceased and this last memento was a way of dealing with the grief. In the present almost everyone has a camera and pictures of our children are taken from the moment they are born and growup. Post mortem photos are still made but not in the way it was done in the 19th century. There are hundreds of memorials sites with post mortem photos on the internet, most of children and babies. But most people who have a last memento of their loved one choose to keep them in an album maybe hidden behind a family picture and over a 100 years.....who knows.... | 
