Call me morbid, but while watching this video about Victorian Post-Mortem photography a thought occured to me which I have occasionally thought before.
Seeing photos of specific people who were as complex and dynamic as you or your best friend are today, but who died over 100 years ago, just makes me think about them and their lives.
I can look at a picture and see a person, but to really know and understand that they are a complex human being is a whole other concept, particularly if they are from another and completely separate time period from us today.
Even more, it is difficult to imagine a still image of a person as dynamic and contradictory as you or me, but especially a person who lived so long ago.
I mean, if you see a photo of a person from within the last 50 years, you'll recognize them as being similar to you (at least in what they are wearing), but if you see a picture of someone in a context that you cannot use your own experience and social knowledge to process what you see, then they are even less of a real person because now they are an anonymous face; a historical object which we can use to understand the time, and it is that much harder to derive any understanding of the person.
In fact, the fact that this person was once a real person doing the same thing that I am doing now is very incredible. That that time was all they knew, and this time is all I know, is equally as mind blowing. And that I now know them, but they will never know I caught a glimpse of them. Yet in the present times, when we see a picture from the past, we tend not to see the person in the photo anyway.
Anyway,
I didn't intend to meditate on that when I found the video, what I was looking for was tips on how in the world I can dress up like Victorian.
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