Victorian Mourning Photoshoot with Tintype and Ambrotype

Photography Tips

With all the technological advancements today, photography has become a lot more accessible. And with social media like Instagram and Facebook dominating the internet, saying that photos are now a dime a dozen is an understatement. While it’s sad, the fact that most photos are posted for the sake of gathering ‘likes’ holds true to a great extent.  Are photographs losing their true value?

In this video, Mortician Caitlin Doughty revisits a time when photographs were truly treasured. During the nineteenth century, families got a photo taken of their loved one who just passed away. And this could be the only photo ever taken of the person. Doughty recreates a Victorian mourning, and a postmortem tintype and ambrotype photoshoot:

When you think about it, these kinds of photos are not valued just because they have a memory of somebody who was close to them. They were also valued because the photography process took quite a bit of effort. While we can snap tons of photos today with just the click of a button, older methods required the subject to remain still for quite some time. And the photographer too had to put in a lot of effort to get the framing, exposure, and the chemical process right.

What do you think? Are we taking photography for granted these days?