04-15-09 – Graves II: The Dead Zone
-
The local historic cemetery is somewhat of a tourist attraction and definitely a draw for photographers – when we were down there on Saturday I saw at least five or six other people wandering around with cameras.
The graveyard at Coloma, CA was a real trip though. It’s literally the first Gold Rush town in CA, and the Catholic cemetery was surprisingly small. And a good number of the graves were literally unmarked. Well, save a shallow depression and some fake flowers that someone had tastefully placed.
Others, like one of my b-sides (most likely) had just minimal and cryptic markings.
.
Elsinore the ones that got to me this weekend were the ones where mother and child(ren) were buried together as all three had obviously not made it through labor :/
I always thought graveyards were tailor made for photography, so it never occurred to me that people might consider it odd or uncomfortable. I can see how it might be awkward if you were taking photos of something when family/friends arrived to visit the grave. But since taking photos in a graveyard always seemed like an act of appreciation, I would hope they would take it that way.
For someone learning to use a camera graveyards are perfect. There’s usually something dramatic, there’s lots of opportunity to frame a complex set of things into a shot, the contrast of colors, textures, etc… are pretty wide, and most importantly things are stationary. So I’ve ended up wandering through graveyards taking photos on several vacations. I even got locked into the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires because I didn’t recognize the “get the hell out” bell that signaled that the guard was about to close the place up for the night.
I agree about it seeming like an act of appreciation. I always thought my looking through the stones and taking their pictures meant that those people were not forgotten for that day. Sort of cheesy, but still.
How did you get out of the Buenos Aires cemetery??
It’s not that I think there’s anything immoral about it. It’s just one of those things. Like, I’ll never be able to enter a pew at a church without genuflecting even though I haven’t been religious for years, or put ice in my orange juice even if it’s from concentrate.
I agree about it seeming like an act of appreciation. I always thought my looking through the stones and taking their pictures meant that those people were not forgotten for that day. Sort of cheesy, but still.
That is pretty much the way I think about it also. I know I will not have any problems if people want to take pictures of my grave some day in the future.
I had a friend of mine who is a native of Louisiana who practically yelled at me .She says It’s bad ju ju or bad luck or some such when I told her I had been to the local cemetery.
were that true i’d be in deep shit. been photographing grave yards since the early ’70s.
or maybe that explains my life for the past 35+ years 🙂
and as Choc-Ful-A and others have pointed out it’s as much an act of appreciation and recognition as anything else.
since there are hundreds of digital images to sort through (and hundreds more on film) finding just three will be tough. and whatever gets posted will be second and third guessed no matter which they are.
this is from the “signs” contest and was taken in my favorite (semi) local cemetery.
http://www.davesweblife.com/images/digging.JPG
Ok..So I said screw it and snuck out of work for a bit and headed over to the closest large cemetery.
Spent about 20 minutes shooting and took 150 shots.
Now lets see if there is anything good.
Yes I did get funny looks from the old folks that were driving in and out. Almost like I was committing a sin by taking pictures of headstones. Screw em!
The caretaker/groundskeeper did walk by as I was laying on the ground taking a shot and said to me “Lovely day to take pictures” (It really is, the sky is deep blue this morning)
/edited for punctuation 🙂
The children’s graves really stood out to me also. Probably part of being a parent now but I just paused in front of each one and tried to imagine being there for a service for my child at only 5 years, 1 yr, or even 5 days old. Sorry not trying to be a downer. But here are two that stood out to me and I wanted to share:
Elsinore, I also noted that the poorer section had the soldiers dating from the Spanish American War to the present. However, soldier’s graves from the latest Middle East War were roped off in one area. I was surprised how many there were. Cemeteries really are a walk through history. Thanks SilverStag for suggesting it.
I’m probably not going to choose this one, but thought I’d post it here anyway.
I agree about it seeming like an act of appreciation. I always thought my looking through the stones and taking their pictures meant that those people were not forgotten for that day. Sort of cheesy, but still.
How did you get out of the Buenos Aires cemetery??
After I realized what was going on I rattled the gates for a few minutes and the caretaker showed up eventually. I think he heard right away and just took his time getting there. He didn’t open the gate though since he apparently was intent on chastising me for being stupid first. But even though I speak a little spanish, and picked out some nasty words, I pretended to be a clueless American that had no idea what he was saying. When he heard I was just replying in English he just sighed and opened the gate.
I was freaking out though, since I had to get to the airport to fly back to the US and didn’t have much time. My co-workers had left on earlier flights and I’d checked out of the hotel already. I wouldn’t have minded spending more time in Buenos Aires, since it’s an amazing place. But I wasn’t up for spending the night in the cemetery and having to find a way to let people at home know I was OK.
Oh man!! Glad you got out fairly quickly lol
Contest linky:
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=433121
Elsinore, I screwed up on my comments. Could you please make the bold comment centered and then center the rest below the bold? Does that make sense? Thanks.
Makes sense, but we can’t edit posts at all on Fark (thankfully, for a lot of reasons–people would constantly fear we would edit them for nefarious reasons). I can delete it and you can repost..it’s still early enough in the contest that I don’t think it would create any issues for you voting-wise. But it’s completely up to you.
Makes sense, but we can’t edit posts at all on Fark (thankfully, for a lot of reasons–people would constantly fear we would edit them for nefarious reasons). I can delete it and you can repost..it’s still early enough in the contest that I don’t think it would create any issues for you voting-wise. But it’s completely up to you.
No, leave it. Guess I need to be more careful next time. Thanks for responding so quickly though.
- The topic ‘04-15-09 – Graves II: The Dead Zone’ is closed to new replies.
.
