A female angel draped over a monument in a moment of overwhelming grief. This seems to be common motif in many a cemetery around the world, yet every version of this statue originates with the statue created by the sculptor William Story for his wife Continue reading “Iconic Statue: The Angel of Grief”
As someone who has visited her fair share of cemeteries, several facts become apparent after a while. The first is that most statues in cemeteries tend to be copies. Within a particular cemetery you may see one or ten or even fifty copies (or near copies) of the same statue. Continue reading “Iconic Statue: The Monteverde Angel”
My third day in the exclusion zone started bright and sunny. Today we were headed to the Duga-1 radar array, also known as the Russian Woodpecker. It was built in 1976 as a way to detect any missles that might come over the horizon from the U.S. Now, satellite Continue reading “Site 175: Chernobyl (Day 3)”
Pripyat. If there is a by-word for what the world would look like if people disappeared suddenly, this town is it. Thirty-six hours after Reactor 4 exploded, the people of Pripyat were finally evacuated. This was a coordinated effort that had the entire population Continue reading “Site 174: Chernobyl (Day 2)”
I don’t know when I first thought about visiting Chernobyl – I think it’s been on my mind for years, probably from the first time I saw photos of the abandoned buildings in Pripyat. I remember when the accident was first announced to the world – Continue reading “Site 173: Chernobyl (Day 1)”
Every generation it seems, lives through some life- or world-changing events in their lifetime, whether it be wars, assassinations, shootings, trials and resignations, hijackings, or terrorist attacks. For me, so far they’ve been the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Continue reading “Site 153: Fukushima Exclusion Zone”
I’ll be travelling a lot this year, mostly work-related, but as I began sorting out which places I wanted to go to, I realized that there will be quite a shift on this blog as I venture further away from cemeteries, and more towards what are commonly known as “dark” Continue reading “2019: Going Dark”
While I’ve been interested in cemeteries for as long as I can remember, I’ve only started photographing them with serious intent just over ten years ago. At the time, I never questioned my decision about photographing them in black and white. Continue reading “Photographing Cemeteries: Colour or Black and White?”
Having just visited my 150th cemetery/memorial site in just over 3 years, I thought it might be interesting to look at the overall numbers of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. Just sorting through the numbers have given me a few surprises – I didn’t realise Continue reading “Cemetery Roundup 2015-2018”
Japan is no stranger to disaster: earthquakes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, plagues, flooding, and landslides have been a part of this island-nation’s landscape since the beginning. Even now, recent disasters as of June-August 2018 including the flooding and landslides in Continue reading “Japan’s Day(s) of the Dead: Celebrating O-bon”
For the final part of this series, I want to talk about some of the ethical issues surrounding photographing cemeteries. People have a lot of differing opinions when it comes to visiting cemeteries, and photography, or any other activity that is not quite related to the purpose Continue reading “The Art of Photographing Cemeteries: Part 3”
In my last post, I wrote about how light is probably the most important aspect of a successful photograph. Despite anyone’s preferences for a certain kind of light, the fact is any and all kinds of light have their disadvantages. The key is knowing how that light will work Continue reading “The Art of Photographing Cemeteries: Part 2”
I spend a lot of time on various cemetery blogs, SNS groups, and reading articles about cemeteries in general. There is usually a really large range of photographs, and while some are truly beautiful or moving, many more are not. Generally I find the photos that Continue reading “The Art of Photographing Cemeteries: Part 1”
I read a lot of articles and blog posts about cemeteries, a lot of “top 10” and “top 20” (and numbers in between) lists that tend to feature mostly the same cemeteries again and again, and wrote about why I don’t like those types of lists here. One of my complaints for those Continue reading “The Cemetery Bucket List: Monumental Cemeteries”
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not against lists (or more accurately, listicles) at all, as I like reading them (and, as you’ll soon see, writing them) myself. But having looked at many a top ten (or twenty) cemetery list over the past few years, I have a few issues with many of them, Continue reading “Why Cemetery Top Ten Lists Suck”
stone and dust 