[HPforGrownups] Wizard Photographs

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 7419

Snuffles MacGoo wrote:

> I've been wondering this for some time - about the Wizard pictures - what
> happens when someone dies? Does their image stop moving? What is it that moves?
> - Gilroy Lockart's photographic image appeared to share his vanity, What else
> might they share? How is they linked? Are you spread to thin if you have
> multiple copies of the same picture made - what effect would it have on you?
> Would your image become sluggish (the more their were)
>
> Some Aboriginal communities believed that photographs 'stole' the soul and
> either photos are forbidden or strongly regulated in those communities. What
> kind of laws (if any) would the wizarding community have around photo's. Can
> you imagine trying to grieve for someone who had recently died only to see
> their image moving around and acting like them? - very weird!

Well, we have cassettes and CDs that still faithfully reproduce the sound of a
deceased person's voice, and movies that make long-dead people seem alive. I think
it's just a different "technology," and the magical world is used enough to moving
"still" photos to deal with waving pictures after a death. They might put them away
for a bit, like plenty of Muggles do when they don't want to see non-waving
reminders of their recently deceased, but I don't think the images would fade or
get still. The motion is a product of the developing process--Colin Creevy said
there was a special potion you develop the film (apparently the same) in to make
the images move.

> And is it only photo's that move - surely some of the people mentioned on the
> collecting cards must have died before the invention of the camera (and its
> subsequent adoption by the Wizard/Witch world). Same sort of process?

Again, the photos move because of the developing potion. There may be a similar one
for illustrations, but do we know if the pictures on the cards are photos or
depictions?

--Amanda