great effect, you must be quite pleased with this photo. I am only assuming you used a live person and not a corps here. great makeup.

after rereading the description, this is a real photo, that you touched up.?

It is a real photograph. I fixed all the blemishes and played with the light.
But the original dates to around the turn of the century.

A little history: Memorial photography dates from the earliest days of photography to sometime in the 1920s when social attitudes changed and photographs of the deceased began to be seen as "morbid". Plus, the advent of affordable cameras made it easier to take lots of photos of people while they were still alive.
But before hand, photos were very expensive, and a post mortem photo was often the only way to show subsequent generations that "yes, this person lived."
This was especially important in the cases of babies and small children: infant mortality was very high in those days and the prevalence of some childhood diseases meant an entire family of kids could be wiped out in less than a month.
A good historical source is "Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America."
A very nice job in fixing up this photograph, that girl really does look like she's merely taking a short nap. She probably had died less than an hour beforehand.

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Yeah, I'm evil.

I actually know quite a bit about Momento Mori, since I am studying to eb a Social Thanatologist.

Social Thanologist? You mean a grief counsellor? Or someone who studies the social customs surrounding death?

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Yeah, I'm evil.

Someone who studies death within social contexts.

why so smallll ; ____ ;

could you pleeeeaaaase send here or send me bigger scan? this is the most beautiful photo i ever seen!!!