The Last Potrait

I remember that last year we went to Thessalonica to a photography festival.
The gallery that is still carved in my memory was titled the Last Portrait. It was a series of real photographs depicting deceased people just before they were buried by their relatives. It was like a family portrait but the deceased was in the centre of the photograph sleeping in the coffin. This was happening until the midst of the 20th century around the world; even in Greece. The reason is that they wanted to keep the last photo of the person that died as a reminder that would comfort them as they would remember his face as it was when they last saw it

Now this sounds so macabre and strange. In the past that was therapeutic as the photo was comforting the relatives. But times were different as it was easier to accept the death of a loved one and they viewed death as a part of life. It was a transition and not the end. Now death is something that happens to others. People avoid going to funerals, they don’t see people dying next to them as now this happens inside the hospitals and after that a funeral service handles the rest. A photograph would be too macabre and we even throw sometimes the belongings of a deceased.
According to Ksanthakis “death creates a contradiction between the need of the society to let go of the deceased and the need to keep him alive”.

Today was the funeral of a fellow student in my photography class. My teacher phoned me to inform me of the funeral but I was in Santorini traveling back to Athens but could not make it on time.
I was shocked when I heard about his death and I felt numb. I did not know how to react as death scares me. He was 37 and died of a stroke. I did not know how to feel, I did not know how to act. I did not know him well, he was in one class ahead of me but every time we said hello and exchanged some words. He was a brilliant photographer and a person that always smiled. I was thinking how young he was to die and that I did not get the chance to get to know him. I felt sad and scared.

But what scares me most is whether we feel sad because a person dies or because we are reminded of our own fragility.