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An Executioner’s Photo Album
Victorian Headless Portraits

vic_photoThere was a time when photo manipulation was a new and undiscovered art, when the possibilities for altering the reality of a photograph were endless, albeit a skill that had to be carefully learned. In the Victorian era, photography was a booming industry, so what did these skilled photo manipulators choose to do? Behead their subjects! Obviously decapitation has held the fascination of human beings for many a century, and once we figured out how to make ourselves look decapitated without actually having to chop anybody’s head off, it became wildly popular. This was the zombie app of the 1890s. As someone who has spent a little time in a darkroom, I can imagine this effect was the result of a long, tedious and careful process, and evidently from the photos below, some photographers were more skilled at beheadings than others. What a lovely souvenir of your dear old mom – a photo of you holding the axe that chopped off her head, while your brother holds her gory skull by the hair! Although Victorian era people seem so stuffy and repressed, in some ways they had a pretty awesome sense of humor. Check out more Victorian headless portraits below…

Headless 1

Headless 19

headless-3

headless-man

Headless

Headless1

headless2

headless3

headless4

headless5

headless6

headless7

headless8

headless9

headless10

headless11

headless12

headless13

headless14

headless15

Headless17

Headless18

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. Pazuzu

    March 16, 2016 at 7:52 pm

    wicked!

  2. Gustavo Gilchrist

    February 29, 2016 at 8:02 am

    This was pretty cool, we should do this in the darkroom or with photoshop @tomlau

  3. Phillip Johnson

    April 24, 2015 at 7:18 am

    So only the first pic wasn’t photoshoped

  4. JulietAlexa

    April 23, 2015 at 7:50 pm

    this is so awesome

  5. Fallen Anjel

    February 18, 2015 at 2:49 pm

    some of them look like they took two pics, developed them, cut out the head and the part that would cover the head and placed it on the other pic then took a picture of that picture. 😉

  6. Dëpütÿ Dïpshït

    September 11, 2014 at 6:31 am

    This made me smile this morning. 🙂

  7. Chuck Russell

    April 16, 2013 at 11:07 am

    See? We’ve always been twisted!

  8. Jørn Egil Svanem

    April 16, 2013 at 2:53 am

    Skills!

    • Gregory Kitchens

      November 17, 2013 at 8:22 pm

      yes definitely, back then it took actual real skill to do these kinds of things, now anyone of us can edit photos easily. not sure if should SMH or praise technological advancements.

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