Intrusive Visuals

A recent post to the Utata group on Flickr included a pointer to a collection of photographs of people just before and just after they passed away. Judging from the replies the collection was very thoughtfully done, and did more to reflect the inner strength of people than to focus on any sort of morbidity.

Still, I appreciate that the collection was posted as a link rather than as thumbnails. If you haven't already gathered from reading other posts here, in addition to TS I also have OCD. The flavor mine takes is primarily intrusive visuals, usually disturbing, and utterly impossible to block out. While I was in college a fellow student found out about this and took immense delight in showing me random pictures from coroner's textbooks, crime scenes, etc. Once the images were in my mind, it took weeks to get them out. They would surface at the strangest of times: during class, late at night, while talking with a friend. It was devastating. I don't think they ever really came to realize the impact they were having on me. In retrospect, I doubt they would've cared.

I appreciate that a real artist can take a subject, even one as morbid as death itself, and turn it into something truly beautiful and powerful. But I also appreciate that people are sensitive to the fact that not everyone can, or even should look at it.

Tom