The girl standing in the middle is the deceased.The photographer attempted to make her look more alive by drawing on her pupils. (16/66)

The girl standing in the middle is the deceased.The photographer attempted to make her look more alive by drawing on her pupils.
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Written by Aung Budhh

Husband + Father + librarian + Poet + Traveler + Proud Buddhist. I love you with the breath, the smiles and the tears of all my life.

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12 Comments

    • She is not deceased. This idea is going around the internet but it’s incorrect. There is no way to make a dead body stand upright in such a way. Probably this girl blinked her eyes at the wrong moment and so the photographer retouched her eyes in the darkroom.

      • Obviously you need to do some research into Victorian death photography. They had a stand they attached to the deceased to make it appear they’re standing. You can see that it’s under her jacket by the folds in the fabric. She’s indeed dead.

        • Obviously you need to do a lot more research. The stands were actually made for the living, they would help people keep still while they had there picture taken because of long exposure times. They were never meant for the deceased and were not strong enough to hold the weight of a body. This isn’t the only one on this page that’s incorrect.

  1. Victorians had no device that could, unseen, pose a dead body standing up perfectly straight and looking directly at the camera. It would be difficult to do today. That girl was alive.

    • There was posing mechanisms to keep a body standing up straight as if they were alive to pose. Please do research before trying to convince ppl of your Opinion thanks

    • They did have those stands. However, we can’t know whether this person is being propped up or not because there is no stand visible in the photo. My vote would be that she is deceased because of the two dots drawn over her eyes in the image, which was likely to make them appear open. I can’t say anything for certain but if the girl were living, then it seems off thar the photographer wouldn’t enhance all their eyes, it would sure make hers stand out less.

  2. She is not deceased. This idea is going around the internet but it’s incorrect. There is no way to make a dead body stand upright in such a way. Probably this girl blinked her eyes at the wrong moment and so the photographer retouched her eyes in the darkroom.

    • They used props to hold the bodies. During this time photographs were rare. If someone died this was usually the only picture a family had of their deceased child. As photographs became more common and less expensive this practice became less common.

      • The stands referenced were not designed to bare the dead weight (no pun intended) of a deceased individual. It would be like standing your deceased cat/dog on all fours. Photographs were common as far back as the 1860’s. It’s unfortunate that more weren’t passed down through familes.