Why cemeteries?
So recently, I had to pick the final twelve (I picked thirteen) pictures that I wanted to show for my digital photography final. I edited the ones I liked as much I as thought necessary, put them on my teacher's flash drive, he printed them out and I put them on a board for multiple strangers to see. I am really new to photography and I mean really new. I bought my camera on a whim at a Best Buy this summer, but I am happy I did. It has been fun figuring out how to use it and actually take some decent pictures. What did I take pictures of? Well, this summer I took pictures of the beach and my dog on vacation. I tried taking pictures of the moon, but I found out quickly that my camera is not god enough for that. This semester we had assignments every week on top of our project. Some of those were reflections, street photography, and levitation. I enjoyed reflections a lot, but my favorite was of course the project. Time to get to what this blog is actually about: my project. The theme I picked was haunted places and cemeteries. Now, if you know me pretty well, this does not come with any surprise, but if you do not, you might feel like Ben Wyatt in the gif I added to keep my promise of Parks and Rec references. Let me explain.
There is a podcast called LORE that my sister got me into. She told me there was an H.H. Holmes episode which intrigued me. If you do not know who H.H. Holmes is, he is America's first serial killer and... my favorite serial killer. That's right, I have a favorite serial killer. Again, if you do not know me well, you might be even more concerned. I will not get into that because it could be a whole separate blog on its own. Back to LORE! So, after mentioning it a couple times, I decided to give it a shot. I absolutely loved it. LORE is a podcast by Aaron Mahnke where he talks about folklore from all over the world. I had been programming, yes programming, a list of places mentioned to see if I could get to any of them while I was abroad. That is what originally inspired this project. I wanted to do something different than what others might do and also, why not? For every city I went to, I looked up haunted places in that city. Multiple times, they were either too far or a cemetery. That is how half of them ended up being cemeteries. I did not mind it though. I loved visiting the cemeteries. There were times that I felt a little bad taking pictures of the resting place of people, but honestly, I would love to have a gravestone that people would want to take a picture of. Those walks through the cemeteries was the most peace I got in any city. It is so quite. Even the fallen stones looked graceful. There is a large, old cemetery in Paris that was absolutely incredible. I could have spent the whole day walking through it. With the pictures, I started just taking pictures of ones that I thought were pretty, but I also got creative with some. I wanted to take pictures from a different view. I only got to one place mentioned in LORE, but I will make sure to get to many more some day.
You of course are free to have your opinion of this. Some people might find it wrong to take these pictures in the graveyards or find it completely strange. That is okay though. I enjoy wearing dresses and watching Disney movies, but I also find the beauty in the creepy and the weird. I am proud of who I am and how this project turned out so I am now going to subject you to it.
