Ever since I was 15 I was determined to end up in New England. It didn’t necessarily stem from the need to be someplace different from where I grew up (the South), but from the want to be someplace really old. By American standards anyway. And you can’t get much older than Boston. My fascination with the area and colonial cemeteries began in high school while learning about the Salem witch trials. Any place with a history that claimed the right to religious beliefs and practices while stone-crushing an elderly witch-man to death was a place worth getting to know!
Colonial burying grounds are still my favorite places. The hand-carved slate gravestones, the skull, cherub or willow tree etchings (different depending on the time period), the typeface of the engravings are all beautiful. And the stories they tell. I love cemeteries the way I love photography. You get this one sliver of a moment in time, and if it’s affecting enough, it’s not difficult for your imagination to decide what happened before and after that moment. So when you come across a shared gravestone documenting a succession of same-named babies that don’t survive past 5 minutes, let alone 5 weeks, the story that it tells of the parents, their feelings before, their feelings after, their living conditions, even the weather, is rich and almost limitless.
And the typos are interesting too! I wondered what 1 7 2 1/2 meant, in that last photo. Is that the engraver’s way of correcting his date error? Or something else entirely?
Thanks to Shang Chen of Shang Chen Photography for meeting up with me here at the Old Burying Ground in Cambridge and letting me use her 24-70mm lens. Finally to meet a fellow NIKONIAN, laaaaaa! All the photos above are taken with that lens, except for the 2nd to last shot which was taken with my 50mm. If I play my cards right I will be getting it for myself sooner than later. I did a lot more post-processing on the photos than I normally would too. It’s landscape photography – which I’m finding I’m really bad at, so sad – so why not.
Love these photos. Old graveyards are SO cool. There were some really neat ones back in the woods near our cottage in northern Michigan.
I love cemetaries. They’re so peaceful. My husband and I visit one ever memorial day and veterns day. We have a great old one by our house that has the graves of soldiers from the Indian wars. Nothing compared to the history of Boston’s cemetaries though…
Love it! When I went to Boston my favorite places were the cemetaries! And your words!?! Its like you read my mind, I’m on the exact same page with you, too bad my bf just does NOT get it! :) And I love your post-processing, you’re definitely not ‘so bad’ at landscapes, in fact I really really love em!
These are really neat! I love the last one! I love old places too. Old things? Not so much. But old places? Oh yes! You must absolutely love Esther Forbes then? I loooooovvvveeee Johnny Tremain! And I know she has a book about the witch trials too, but I haven’t read it.
I’m getting that lens soon too. Can’t wait! ;)
These aren’t bad! I love the first image – I dig your post processing work on it, it’s very tilt-shifty.
As a fellow Southerner, I definitely can understand your love of Boston and old, historic places…
Old New England graveyards are neat! I grew up in the South too, and you just don’t walk past cemeteries very often like in Boston. I really love your photos, and I think you have a good eye for landscape, even though you may not think so yourself!
Nice lens huh? Apart from a bit of vignetting wide open it’s totally faultless IMO, it never disappoints. Shang’s work is great, I like her pic of you. I need a local Nikon buddy!
these are wonderful Li – I like the light you captured on the tombstones – as another fellow southerner I understand your need to be in New England – I miss it everyday, but get to see glimpses of her in your posts – cheers!
The post processing really paid off because those are beautiful, especially the b&w’s.
I like to visit colonial graveyards as well. I enjoyed your photos.
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