Re: photographing cemeteries
Re: photographing cemeteries
If there is I am totally unaware of it as my wife and I have photographed cemeteries for as long as we have done photography ( 30 plus years). Normally when I am photographing in a cemetery the workers just ignore me but have had one tell me about some of the more interesting grave sites and others nod and say hi.
Spent a very pleasant day at the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague and was totally welcomed by the people there and the Old Jewish Cemetery is loaded with tourists so thing there is nothing wrong with viewing headstones there can be nothing wrong with photographing them.
Re: photographing cemeteries
Lots of old churches and cemeteries around here, and I've never had any reluctance to photograph either. It isn't as easy a subject as it seems like it ought to be, though.
Rick "who once made rubbings of headstones for an art class" Denney
Re: photographing cemeteries
I remember being younger, watching an after-show docu on Buffy, and Sarah Michelle Gellar said how uncomfortable she was shooting in graveyards, til she realised they were dead and alone...she was happy to shoot there thinking she wasn't disturbing them, more giving them some company.
Something like that.
I took cemetary shots when I first started taking pics but got bored of it very quick. I wasnt obsessed with it and eventually found it cliche.
That said, if you enjoy it, do it.
Re: photographing cemeteries
Quote:
Originally Posted by
h2oman
...I felt a bit conflicted about shooting headstones of people that I knew nothing about other than what I could read there...
I think they enjoy our company. But not always, if you believe this incident:
“What is this ill-mannered tree thinking?” cemetery workers asked. “Does Eternal Rest mean nothing?”
(Me, I was thinking they had it backwards – it was the dead pushing-aside the tree.)
In any case, this situation was … well, let’s say “corrected” … and the tree learned a grave lesson in cemetery management. The romance of this scene is no more.
And the dead – what were they thinking?
“That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those … of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another.” (Wilder’s Our Town.)
Tachi 4x5
Schneider XL 110mm/5.6
Polaroid Type 55
6 Sec. @ f22 (3-stop GND filter on lower portion!)
Epson 4990/Epson Scan
Re: photographing cemeteries
I have not had any trouble shooting, or thinking to shoot cemeteries. But things were rather different on Svalbard, in the high arctic. I came across (I unfortunately had only my digital camera with me at that time) some open graves - there are plenty of those… Skeletons, naked or even dressed in rather well preserved clothes rests, are lying more or less visible and accessible. It was a very strong moment, and the temptation to photograph was very strong. But while I was focusing on the skeleton (lying under the stones covering the grave), a very odd feeling came over me - and I felt like an intruder, like somebody about to take a very private and intimate moment without having a right to do so. I don't really know what it was, some kind of respect, or the humbling feeling of looking at somebody that already was like I will be in several decades… But I shied away, I decided I had no right to take that photograph. I felt like respecting this final rest. All I could take away with me was the shot of the location itself… I can't think of a more beautiful place for the final rest. R.I.P.
Re: photographing cemeteries
Some cemeteries may chase you out, for instance a cemetary in north Seattle, name starts with a "W." I had to be very covert (and quick) when shooting there. But I do tend to not show the names in the image if I can (using contrast if possible), so I must have some sort of stigma.
Re: photographing cemeteries
I was going to post a shot I recently took of a civil war vet's grave at Fort Rosecrans NC, but realized I shot it with a MF camera...but I don't believe it's taboo to shoot grave sites, unless you have some religious or spiritual inclination not to.
Brian
Re: photographing cemeteries
Regarding cemeteries as a whole, I don't think there is an issue at all.
Regarding individual graves, I'm sure it is just stating the obvious, but as long as it is done respectfully then I don't think there is a major issue.
Both my brother & grandfather are buried at Arlington Nat'l Cemetery and I've seriously considered shooting their graves (especially as I don't often have a chance to visit them). If I were to do it (and I hope to some day), I would likely throw the names on surrounding tombstones out of focus. To put it another way... I would ask what the subject of your picture is, and what are you trying to convey? What is the significance of being able to read the names off the tombstones?
I would throw it out there as a creative challenge to effectively photograph a cemetery in a way that does not capture the names of the deceased unless the names of the deceased are in some way the subject of the photograph. If anyone could do this effectively, it would most assuredly be LF photographers that can control nearly every aspect of the image.
I'm sure most disagree with me, but thats just my thought.