I am interested in photographing tombstones, any advice? Thanks, Brenda.

-- Brenda Kerwin (bskerwin@mindspring.com), November 01, 1997

Answers

Cemeteries

Brenda.... Strong side light. Long shadows. Slightly low contrast. Extreme close-ups of tombstone details. Fine grain film(the stones will provide the grain) Cover all seasons, winter,summer,etc. Fresh snow is great. Whistle while you work. Don Mc

-- Don McIlwain (cardon@networx.on.ca), November 01, 1997.

I recently photographed a cemetary for the first time about a month ago. I found that just about anything you would normally do to photograph any subject worked great here. A heavy rain had just fallen, darkening the stones and there were many fallen leaves giving points of contrast. My advice would be to photograph in whichever way your creativity takes you. There are no right or wrong answers. Have fun and good luck, perhaps you can show us some or your results.

-- Andy Laycock (pbrlab@unixg.ubc.ca), November 03, 1997.

a real nice effect is to photograph at night using "painting with light". after setting up your camera on a tripod with shutter open, walk around with a hand-held flash, high- lighting areas of intrest i.e.tombstones, trees or models. a full moon will also add a nice effect. you must do a lot of guesswork on exposure and amount of light objects will need for the desired effect. This is fun but not for the faint of heart.

-- dennis peterson (dennis.peterson.viasystems.com), November 17, 1997.

There is a book called "Elysium, A gathering of Souls" by photographer Sandra Russell Clark. The antire book is composed of B&W photographs of New Orleans cemeteries. I highly recommend it!

-- Ellie M. Diaz (Melimati@AOL.com), January 19, 1998.

Try using infrared film for some interesting effects that work well with graveyards, creating an eerie mood. Info on infrared film can be found through this URL: http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/mainpage.htm

-- Jeff Spirer (jeffs@hyperreal.org), January 19, 1998.

My wife and I happened by some angel topped tombstones when we were in Maine and had great fun capturing their image... Haven't seen any more in months 'til we drove by a Catholic cemetery in Chicgo and it had seven or eight lovely angel tombstones which we photographed fairly early in the morning in good sunlight... haven't seen these yet byt they should be good....

No problems with releses, "stealing" images.... like photographing art.

-- Oliver Joy (ohjoy@juno.cam), September 24, 1998.

Well, it may seem obvious, and it has been over a year since your first posting, BUT, before shooting in a graveyard at night, you may want to notify someone, like your nearest relative or friend who won't mind answering a late night call from the police staion. I would heartily reccomend finding out who administers the burial site and ask permission politley. You wouldn't believe how upset people get sometimes. It only takes one desecration or tombstone toppling to make the life of the innocent photographer most unpleasant.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 24, 1998.

Speaking of "angel topped" tombstones, Oliver, you probably saw an older cemetary that dates from the "monumental" era. Victorian times. You can find books about this, identifying cemetaries that have a lot of that style of monumental stones and park-like settings. Among other things, when people visited a cemetary in those days, they stayed a while, horse and buggy transportation being what it was.

The monumental style in cemetaries will provide photographic themes: heavenly, heroic, prosperity, tragedy, etc. They didn't hold back when they commissioned the sculpture. Do a search on cemetaries on the Web:

http://www.angelfire.com/ny/dementio/cemeteries.html http://nav.webring.com/cgi-bin/navcgi?ring=cemphoto;list http://www.findagrave.com/

Our local monumental cemetary (Philadelphia), Laural Hill, has one sculpture that depicts an angel holding open the lid of the tomb to allow the soul to escape to heaven. Can't get more graphic than that.

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), September 03, 1999.