[A strange and potentially uncomfortable topic, I know. My hope is this and the next two posts will help families be more intentional re: having at least one good photograph at hand when a loved one passes.]

A couple of summers ago in Spirit Lake, Iowa, I had Bill, my husband, take a photograph of me with the camera I used at the time. I had lots and LOTS of compliments on it (and I liked it, too). At dinner with a group of my retired teaching friends, they gave me warm fuzzies regarding how much they liked the photograph. I loved their comments and told them such, and also said, “Now I have an obituary photo.”

Around that time, I photographed one of my sisters and her husband, each separately. Photographing my sister was a planned just-for-fun shoot and she dressed up. Photographing her husband was very spontaneous with about a five-minute notice (and lasted about five minutes). He wore the t-shirt and shorts that he already had on. When we finished photographing her husband, my sister sweetly said to him, "Now, honey, we each have an obituary photo."

A photographer recently told me his dad wanted him to take a photo for his (the dad’s) eventual obituary. The photographer thought that was odd, and that it would be even more odd to someday, at his dad's funeral, see the photograph he created of his dad.

I’m probably at least twenty years older than that photographer. Twenty years ago (maybe even ten years ago) I would have thought the same as he expressed.

But, the reality is that too often when loved ones pass away, family and friends left behind are left scrambling to find an image that does justice to the legacy of the deceased.

When my mom passed away, one of my sisters had a great photograph of her in her element at her library retirement reception. We were fortunate that the image had great clarity and good resolution for an enlargement to display at my mom's funeral. The first image below isn't that image, but in hindsight would have been awesome to use! The image at the left in the next grouping is the photograph we had at the back of the church during the visitation. During my mom's funeral, it was placed on a pedestal at the front of the United Methodist Church in Rolfe, Iowa. (We didn't get a picture of it placed there, but these pictures help visualize.)

As a side note, at Mother's service, an additional way we honored her was by placing several of her watercolors around the perimeter of the church.

When my dad passed away in 2010, that same sister had a wonderful photograph of my dad, but had only a tiny-sized digital file of it. That file was too small to use for an enlargement. I happened to have an image of my dad in his everyday clothes and worn hat, and with a big smile. By photo-contest standards it was lacking, but since it captured the essence of my dad, it was perfect! A friend of mine named Mona printed the enlargement and mounted it in time for his service. (In 2017 Mona passed away suddenly at the age of 51. I'll write about her in Part II.)

The first photograph below is the original of the photograph (taken around 2007) we used for my dad's service. (At his right is the statue of Cy that he made out of scrap metal. The statue was at the north end of Jack Trice Stadium for about twenty years and now resides in Rolfe, Iowa.)

The three photographs below are from the day of my dad's service, also at the Methodist church in Rolfe. His photograph is in the front of the church, along with bundles of corn stalks, representing my dad's heritage, agricultural engineering degree, working for John Deere as an engineer, and innovative farming career.

There are two more parts to this series, including tips for having obituary photos without feeling all weird about doing so. Thank you for reading this far on a topic I feel is so important.

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Full-of-Life At-the-Ready Obituary Photos --- Part I

But, the reality is that too often when loved ones pass away, family and friends left behind are left scrambling to find an image that does justice to the legacy of the deceased.

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