Very old cemeteries are beginning to appeal to me more and more. I think you can make lovely photos in cemeteries, but the older ones, with overarching trees, offer lots of photo opportunities. The sterility of modern, giant fields of headstones don’t do it for me. But the very old ones, which can be tough to find, are great.
As for technique, my current favorites are pinhole and black-and-white Infrared. These photos are all pinhole taken on a Reality-so-Subtle 6×6 camera with Kentmere100 film. I am increasingly using this film, as it has good tonality, decent reciprocity curves, and a budget price. It doesn’t handle lot of extreme pushing as much as silver-rich films, which is the only downside that I see.
As for the images, the first two are definitely my favorites of the group.
The first photo was the biggest surprise. I took this photo in mid-morning and I didn’t actually sell that the sun was going to be in the photo. This positioning of the sun, along with the rays of light diffracting off the pinhole imperfections, really creates a lovely, heavenly light effect that really came out well. The broken, white marble cross just added to the scene with the over hanging live oaks. These photos were all taken in Apalachicola, FL way in the back of the town cemetery. The gravestones are all from the first part of the 20th century.
The second photo is a pair of white marble headstones for a husband-and-wife pair that were just lovely. I loved the pairing and the memories.
