the bad news, and the good---yes, in that order
 

The bad:

one of my neighbour's mother died today. She was a nice lady in her mid-80's. Actually, I was surprised because she seemed to be fairly healthy.

The good:

I got hired to shoot her funeral. So not only do I get paid, I get to create a memorable video for her family here and in England.

I'm posting this because so many people like to shoot weddings, but don't realize that there's a market for funerals. And like with shooting weddings, shooting funerals will not only help keep memories alive, but bring the funeral into the homes of family members who were unable to attend.

could you describe the process of shooting and editing the funeral, and creating a tasteful video. I'm curious how you'd go about doing that.

I don't know about shooting a Funeral... It sounds almost as morbid as a shooting a wedding!

Yeah, I've never heard of funeral videos myself, whats up with that? I know I don't want to get all sad and watch a funeral video...

Ive been at some recorded funerals it was before i had my gear.I know there is a market for it but i dont know if i could handle, it may not be so bad if its someone you dont know.

Hi Rob! I wrote a little something about how I shoot funerals some time back. I don't have the dvinfo link. Perhaps someone can find it and post it? I'll dig at least 6' later and see if I can pull it out. :)

Now for some more bad news, and some good news.

I went shopping for jeans at the Sears Outlet store. When we were leaving the parking lot---BANG!! 3 car crack-up across the street. I pulled out my SLR and was across the street and taking pics within 2 minutes. Very ugly. I won't get into the details. Anyways, one women was in bad shape (I won't go into the details). So I took several pics of her---close-ups. Thank God that I had color film in my cam to bring out the reds. I also took pics of everything else: different angles, plate numbers, ambulance, fire truck, the works. Then I passed out my cards to the people involved and told them to let the insurance co. know.

The good news? I get to make a little money, and I bought myself 2 pairs of jeans (on sale).

Frank -

If you like, I can post your work on www.EMSSRC.com.

It's a website for the EMS & Fire Services. I would however, NOT post the bloody pics. We see enough of that at work and don't need to take it home.

Then again, everyone likes to see a good accident now and again. The forces involved are amazing.

I would also remove the license plates and other over identifing marks.

Let me know what you think. I'm always looking for good work.

Thanks.

Aaron

Frank, all thats missing is your degree from a 4th rate law school (just kidding).

For many, a funeral is as close to a family reunion as it gets. I know I've met many relatives at funerals that I would never have met under other circumstances. So despite the glum subject matter, documenting the attendees of a funeral can prove a memento nonpareil.

Aaron, contact me via e-mail in a couple of weeks, and I'll scan a couple pics and send them to you. I don't know how well they'll turn out, because I was snapping in a hurry, in the middle of a extremely busy hwy, and in the middle of rush hour traffic. I had drivers honking and yelling at me to get off the road. So I snapped about 15 pics from different angles etc, all in less than 3 minutes. Oh, and the bozos didn't bother me. I could hardly hear them.

PS: I felt a little bad about ordering the doctor to get out of my way so that I could get clear close-up shots of the main victim. Ugh.

The doctor just happened to walk by and offer her services. (She was cute---but my wife was watching me from across the street.)

My wife practised law in Tehran.

Thanks Frank.

I will take what I can get.

SORRY to everyon who checked out the EMSSRC site. The connection IS SLOW tonight!

I'm not too worried about the quality of the pics. The fact that you were able to caputre something so stressful in a situitation that is not normal for most folks is great.

As for the M.D. Good for you! I know that may sound a little mean taken out of context, but most doc's (no offese if any present, I UNDERSTAND YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS) just get in the way.

There is nothing worse than having mulitpul vict's. and a Dentist running up yelling "IM A DOCTOR! I CAN HELP!"

So, WAY TO TAKE CONTROL!

I'm down off my soap box now.... ;)

Oh yeah... at least she was eye candy.

- Aaron

Hi
Worst photography job I did was to go into funeral home & take picture of baby that died at 8 weeks , for stepson.


Peter.

Family is more difficult to shoot, I find, because you're expected to take part in the funeral, not work it. When I did my dad's funeral, it was difficult. That was about 4 years ago, and I'm still not over it. That's life. I guess I got "hardened" with going to funerals when I was young. Between 9 and 16, my older aunts and uncles dropped dead one by one. One great uncle died just 3 days before his 105th birthday! He was healthy almost right to the end---living alone on one of his many sections of land, working the soil. (Powell, was his name. His closest campanion was a wild cat--which attacked him the odd time---it would climb a tree and wait for him to walk buy. Then it would pounce on him. The 20 pound bob cat would just be playing, but my uncle always ended up wounded.)

PS: I only saw the cat a few times, dashing by from a distance. It didn't trust humans, except for my uncle.

Working at a church, I've been involved in a lot of funerals. It started out just running sound, then I got into doing photo montages, then people started requesting for them to be video taped.

I think the main thing is that all the people are gathered together to remember the deceased. If people have an opportunity to share their favorite memory or something they remembered about the person, that's what the family wants to be able to remember and watch over and over again in the sad moments when they're missing their loved one.

We view funerals (or memorial services, as we prefer to call them) as a celebration of someone's life, so they're usually a joyful occasion. The saddest one I can remember, though, was for a 5 year old girl who died from cancer. I can still hear the sound of her mom wailing when we started playing the first of three photo montages we did for that service. Very touching.