[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 December 2020].
This is the final season’s grievings image I’ll be sharing to my blog in 2020.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this festive mini-series.
decorating the tree
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 December 2020].
deck the halls
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 24 December 2020].
untitled #147
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 December 2020].
now bring us some figgy pudding
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 21 December 2020].
There's a whole post to come about my first visit to Kensal Green Cemetery; one of the 'magnificent seven' London cemeteries.
But, between now and Christmas Day, I'll be sharing a few more season's grievings images I took during my visit, including this one.
Images from this mini-series had previously been shared early access for my Patreon patrons two days before making them public to the rest of the world.
But I have a few I want to share so they'll become public closer to 24 hours after original posting there in the lead-up to Christmas.
After Christmas, new images from the series will be available early access to my patrons a week before the rest of the world.
the festive hearts
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 12 December 2020].
This looks like being the last season's grievings instalment for now.
If I find any new ones worthy of sharing I'll do so whether that's before Christmas or anytime in the future.
I hope you've enjoyed this mini-series within my sepulchre series.
I'm expecting to have more stained glass images for you soon.
Perusing my digital archives for these images has reminded me exactly how many of my photographs from graveyards, cemeteries, churchyards and more haven't yet seen the light of day.
And don't even start me on how many graves I've captured on film that I would love to share with you!
I especially enjoyed reminiscing over my, as yet, unedited and unpublished photographs from Edinburgh's Parish Church of Saint Cuthbert.
I had the chance to revisit the Saint Cuthbert churchyard in 2011, likely about 10 years after my first visit there. This was due to the generosity of my newest Patreon patron, Sarah Jansen, who gifted me the unneeded return portion of her Edinburgh to London ticket. And Daniel and Mia who put me up for my visit during festival season moments away from the base of the hill Edinburgh Castle rises from. A prime position for photographing the Military Tattoo fireworks (which I did).
I hope to, eventually, share more of my analogue photographs with you, as well as my digital ones. Though a film and flatbed scanner - amongst other things like infinite time and money to devote to the task - is something I need to reinstate into my toolbox first. I'm working on it!
sun-bleached santa
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 10 December 2020].
merry christmas
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 December 2020].
wreath. red ribbons. reunited.
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 6 December 2020].
o tannenbaum
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 4 December 2020].
season's grievings
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 2 December 2020].
As promised in my 22 November post, albeit starting a day later than planned, I've been putting together a new series of photographs.
These are images I've previously taken that have a particularly seasonal relevance. Though, as warned, they're not really full of your usual Christmas cheer.
As many of you will know, I've a bit of a thing for graveyards, cemeteries, churchyards and other places of rest. If you don't know, now you know.
Reviewing photos I imported from earlier this year recently, I realised I've gathered a collection of photographs from various places of rest that capture mementoes of Christmas. Festive ornaments and decorations left by family and friends recently or not so recently.
So, I thought it was as good a time as any to edit a selection of these to share with you as a series entitled 'season's grievings'.
I'm still reviewing how many I have and editing them as I find them.
Given the topical nature of the series, I'm going to share them early-access for patrons-only on my Patreon, but only two days ahead of them becoming public and being posted here and elsewhere on the interwebs, instead of the usual week.
For the avoidance of doubt: these photos are shared respectfully. Both, for those who've passed and the families who decorated their final resting place.
I find these both beautiful and heartbreaking tributes to those now gone.
a child’s bauble
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 22 October 2020].
emanations
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 27 September 2020].
my cross to bear
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 September 2020].
heaven or hell
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 14 September 2020].
This is another photograph I submitted to issue #149 of Shots Magazine.
Like encrypted, this photo was taken in the ossuary housed in the crypt at St Leonard's Church in Hythe, Kent.
It's a fascinating place for people like me, but maybe not up everyone's alley...
This was taken about 14:00 one day in summer. The mixture of daylight through the window of the crypt and the artificial lighting overhead creates a nice contrast of red and gold light on the shelves of skulls facing each other.
in safe hands
[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 September 2020].
annunciation
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 August 2020].
This is another image from a new series I'm tentatively titling stained glass.
The first image I shared, in case you missed it, is pietà, interrupted.
It may seem like a straightforward, perhaps bland, title for a series of photographs of stained glass windows but - like many of the images themselves - it's actually more layered.
Although the central subjects of the images are, unsurprisingly, stained glass windows, many of the photos from the series also make the glass appear 'stained' by the outside world:
the sky and/or trees may be visible through or reflected in the stained glass
adjacent mausoleums may be visible through the stained glass
the view of the stained glass might be obscured by elements of and in the mausoleum
parts of the glass might be missing or damaged
I'm not generally one for explaining my image or series titles. I often prefer a certain level of ambiguity and to see if the viewer 'gets my drift'.
I love words and language, especially puns, double entendre and euphemism, as you may have noticed. But sometimes I feel simple titles convey more than you might initially realise.
I'd be interested to know what you think about the series title. Do you think it's:
Deceptively simplistic and too bland?
Works when you know my thought process?
Do you think you would have related the title to my thoughts above based on the two images from the series I've shared so far?
pietà, interrupted
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 July 2020].
Almost exactly nine years ago, I finally had the opportunity to visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery. I was in Paris to meet my friend Victoria.
As you might have read in the encrypted instalment of my postcards from another's life series, I've been somewhat obsessed with cemeteries, graveyards, churchyards and such from a young age.
So when Victoria offered me the opportunity to meet her in Paris, I jumped at the chance, knowing she would be up for visiting the cemetery. And it did not disappoint.
We only spent a few hours there. I felt we like barely scratched the surface (we didn't even visit Jim Morrison's grave). But it was wonderful.
We visited the final resting place of Oscar Wilde - before they cleaned the lipstick off and created a barrier to stop people kissing it - and some other celebrities from the ages.
But most of our wanderings were among the graves of those less known.
I found patterns forming in my photos as we wandered; some definite series forming.
Despite visiting the cemetery on 17 July 2011, I only edited one photo on my return. I edited others in 2014 that haven't yet been posted online.
This photograph I edited tonight.
It fits with a series that formed during my visit. I hope to share more of the images from that series in the coming weeks.
I'll be sharing a post (hopefully within a week!) about my thoughts on the 100 Day Project I just finished. But I don't want to lose momentum on sharing work.
Compared to the time it took to create a digital collage each day for one hundred days editing photos is a walk in the park. And I have so many of them to share!
Not every photo I post will come with so much rambling, but I hope you enjoy them!
encrypted
I don't remember when death was first explained to me. Strangely, because I have a lot of vivid memories from childhood and adolescence. I feel like it's something I should remember.
When did I first become aware of the fact that everyone dies? That my grandparents would die? That my parents would die? That I would die?
I, strangely, don't know. I don't remember that ever being explained to me.
I remember hearing that my grandpa had died. The first of my close family members to pass away in my lifetime. But what I remember most about that was that my parents decided that we children wouldn't go to the funeral. That my father would go, but my mother and the three of us kids wouldn't. I don't remember the whys or the wherefores, but I guess I was okay with that.
My parents had tried to keep us away from seeing him the way he was towards the end. A non-smoker dying of emphysema. A horrible way to die.
My younger brother insisted on visiting him in the hospital to the point that my parents finally relented, but I recall being told that all my grandpa could do was wink at him, as he would always do when he caught our eye across the dining table as we carried on playing in their lounge room while the adults talked around the table and drank tea.
I don't remember the explanation for death I was no doubt given as a child, at some point.
I remember the talk about making love, having sex, fucking. The explanations of puberty and menstruation. The books my mother borrowed from the library to help me understand what would happen to my body as I moved through that awkward stage between being a child and being a woman.
Those discussions, her openness and the books she gave me to read meant I didn't face those things with fear the way her mother had. It meant I could ask any question of her about those things that I wanted an answer to. But I don't remember asking her about death, ever.
I remember my mother telling my brother and me that one of my father's former co-workers in the Northern Territory had passed away from AIDS when we were both still in primary school after we'd moved to Melbourne. Her explaining homosexuality in a non-judgmental way and probably a vague explanation of AIDS; as much as we needed or wanted to know at the time. I guess I didn't ask many questions. I listened. I took it all in. I learned homosexuality wasn't bad from a young age, but I never really thought about his death as deeply.
Then, in 1992, at 14 years of age, I found myself in a cemetery in New Orleans. A cemetery many know from the film 'Easy Rider'. A cemetery full of vaults built above ground to avoid human remains draining off into the river.
I was fascinated. This was the closest I'd ever come to death and I found it intriguing. The way life and death was celebrated through these places. The way their graves were created in as elaborate a fashion as their homes.
They were beautiful, despite the death they encased. They were time capsules. Memorials to those inside. A fashion statement. A record. Bragging rights after death.
Even at that young age, I knew I didn't personally want to be buried, but I had fallen in love with cemeteries. With graveyards. With the art of the stonemason. With the ceremony. The ritual.
Over the years I found myself consuming books about death; documentaries about death and the places people are buried. About how our bodies are handled after we die. About burials. About graveyards. About cemeteries.
I've spent countless hours, camera in hand, wandering through churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, crypts, and whatever other names you want to call those places where people are laid to rest.
Generally, I find them places of peace, of relaxation. Like parks, but with the remains of those who came before still present in them.
But I know they often have reputations of being places of unrest. Of disrespect to those interred there. Not all of these places are peaceful or have been peaceful in the past.
In the decades since my grandpa died, I've managed to avoid the realities of death. At 42 years of age, somehow, I've managed never to attend a funeral. Never to have seen a dead body. Never to have spent time in the company of someone in their final hours or watching them pass from this world.
I consider myself lucky, but I'm also aware that I live a closeted life by not having been exposed to those things. Death is, after all, a part of life. From the time we're born we're dying. This is a simple fact not even I can escape. And for someone who actively seeks out the final resting places of the dead, it's not lost on me that I’ve managed to evade being exposed to these things.
However, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality. I’m conscious this impacts me in terms of my fear of falling, for example, but also my reluctance to get a driver’s licence. My fear of others around me dying. My fear of dying. And more specifically, my fear of dying alone and no one knowing or being nearby to prevent that.
I often choose a solitary life which means I’m more likely to be alone if something unfortunate happens. Best case scenario: my flatmate will find me hours after the fact, too late to change the outcome. Worst case scenario: he or someone else will find me weeks later, again, too late to change the outcome.
Even in my worst stages of depression, I knew I wasn’t a suicide risk because what was making me most unhappy was not living my life the way I wanted to live it. I’ve always loved life and been aware of how much more I want to do, so my depression has always been related to not being able to live the life I’d like. Not due to wanting to end my life. I count myself lucky again for that.
But it doesn’t lessen my fascination with death. With how we handle the dead.
Despite my fascination with graveyards, I don’t want to be buried. I’m an outspoken advocate for organ donation (and, in fact, donation of anything that can be donated) and, as an atheist, I don’t believe in the hereafter or reincarnation or anything that requires my body to remain whole after my death.
So, while I love the stonemasons’ artistry, and the pomp and circumstance of heraldic funerals and elaborate mausoleums, vaults and headstones, I’ll settle for returning to ashes and the earth when it’s my time.
Though I hope my time doesn’t come anytime soon.
larry the ledge lizard
now playing: violent femmes - out the window