Seriously?

When the obituary of Jim Schinneller, a retired University of Wisconsin art professor, was printed in the paper, many were probably surprised to see a picture of the back of Jim's head next to it, as Jim Stingl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel pointed out in a recent article.



His family stated that, as an art teacher, Jim was always asking them to look at the world and "rethink what's normal." This picture definitely does the trick.

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Looking at the semiology of this picture, it definitely goes against what is commonly perceived as obituary photos. It is the same angle as the frontal face pictures more commonly used. However, because the photograph looks at the back of Jim's head, it makes you look at the world from a different angle, a different view. Maybe he's going someplace as the author of the article, Jim Stingl suggested:

"[the picture] showed him heading off into the eternal sunset."

Perhaps this picture, which started out as a Christmas picture for his children, did exactly as it was intended, forcing people to view the world from a different angle. Apparently this concept followed Schinneller in both life and death.