"Her stomach was ripped open"

[gidgey]

Thanks for that, I suspected it was probably because its difficult to photograph them lying down. I never thought of lighting.

[The Grave Maurice]

The skylight idea sounds reasonable. I would have thought that the photographer was using a flashgun that couldn't be tipped without all the powder falling out. With any luck, the acknowledged expert in this area, Robert J. McLaughlin, will come by shortly and set us straight (so to speak).

[sleekviper]

Back then, the only picture that someone may have had was the death pose. In most cases the body would have looked somewhat alive, but since they appear to have just used the back drop for a morgue photo it seems odd. It was important to those that lost children, and had no pictures, to have the child dressed and standing, at times with the parents, as a picture. Others did as well, but many posed death pictures feature children. Basically they appear to have wanted the added detail that the posed setting would allow over a grainy morgue shot. Be my guess.

[Garza]

Can that be done in about 10 or 15 minutes, with the organ harvesting and the facial cuts?

Sorry for the late reply btw, busy life lol.

I have no experience doing this on humans but seperating the skin from muscle is not that hard on rats/mice. Make incision on the abdomen from up and down, pinch skin, stick point of knife into the pinch and slide knife up and down seperating the skin. Easily 2 mins tops, probably not even 1 min. But it would be difficult in the dark when I think about it - unless you do it for a living, day in, day out.