Post-COVID Death Photography

Scary. Biblical fear. I felt it when I left the theater after seeing the fifth Hunger Games movie, “Spiders and Snakes.” I was headed for the bathroom and this rush of humanity was coming at me as people were exiting the other indoor movie theaters. Strangers all around me, tributes – and I feared any one of them would come at me with a trident. Fear is situational. Like the first time I visited the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. After seeing so many parts of dead bodies, I was startled on the bus ride home whenever one of the passengers moved. And I couldn’t eat sausage for a month. COVID was less scary than either of those situations. Deadlier, but less scary. 

Recently I had to think about the art I’ve created since COVID, in the four years since 2020. Why? Well, this group I belong to, The Philadelphia Photo League (est. 2012) is putting together an exhibition and a book of work (a “Members Journal”) to showcase what we’ve done, what we’ve created in the past four years: 

“Your images contribute to a powerful narrative of creativity and resilience, reflecting the transformative years from 2020 to 2024. We’re honored to have you as part of this celebration of photographic artistry and storytelling.” - The Photo League

In addition to choosing five of my photographs that are representative of my past four years’ worth of photography, I put together an under-100-word bio. Basically, that amounted to one sentence for each of the five images. I naturally had more to say - hence, this blog post! The five images you see in this article are the five I submitted for the League project. The exhibition of the members’ work will occur in a Philadelphia-area gallery sometime in the spring of 2025. This was a good exercise to gather my thoughts regarding what I’ve done and what I might do in the future. What you’ll notice (surprise, surprise) is that all my artwork has to do with death. Scary stuff to the unsuspecting, perhaps.

The first image that you see above, “COVID Death,” is a digitally-manipulated photograph of an physically manipulated scene in a cemetery. I brought the skull. Remember social distancing during the winter/spring of 2020? People were advised against indoor gatherings, even with extended family members. Many people much more normal than I took to cemeteries as a place to go. It was one of the few safe havens to spend time - you could be there with family and friends, you were outdoors, and all the strangers observed the six-foot social distance rule – they were six feet under.

I took many of my skulls (like guitars, you never admit how many you actually own) into the basement during lockdown and photographed some still lifes (is it lives?). But there's a limit to how creative you can get in your basement. So I took them to cemeteries and created images like the one you see above. I even loaned my skulls to a photographer friend of mine to do similar work. Funny, no one ever had any issue with me playing with skulls in a graveyard, but masks are another thing altogether. Remember how polarizing they were? "You have no right to make me wear a mask," and all that? (Obviously the anti-maskers never thought about why surgeons and dental hygienists wear masks…). Anyway, the social media audience went ballistic when I published photos of masks on cemetery statues. Puzzling, but hey, art is what you can get away with, as Andy Warhol said.

Another COVID-sprung idea I had was to get people who only knew each other through social media, together physically, to tour some local cemeteries. Actual reality is much preferable to virtual reality, I’ve always thought. In the spring of 2020, when everything was going sideways, I wanted to merge social media with actual human interaction. People were missing that. I invited local Instagram cemetery photographers who only knew each other through that platform, to one cemetery to meet, trade stories, learn from each other. About eight people met at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia. My friend Jenn (@cems_and_things) organized a meetup group on Instagram so we could communicate better. She invited others. 

That first meetup was so wonderful that we all agreed to continue meeting in cemeteries, making photographs, and enjoying each other’s company. This has been going on for four years now. The photo you see above was made in December 2024, in Riverview Cemetery, Trenton, New Jersey. We do a group photo every time we meet. Membership has expanded to about twenty people and we average about eight people per meetup. We try to do this every few months. Wonderful friendships have developed and I must say, this has been a great catalyst for my creativity!

 “No Indoor Gatherings During COVID Pandemic”

 “No Indoor Gatherings During COVID Pandemic” is a photo I made in February of 2021 during a COVID surge where there was lockdown and no indoor gatherings. After a snowfall in Philadelphia, I photographed this temporarily closed church in Bridgeport, PA. I think it speaks volumes about our social situation at that time, when virtual meetings via the internet were becoming the norm and physical meetings were abruptly stopped – this included gatherings in places of worship. To this day, virtual meetings have replaced a percentage of physical meetings, sometimes for our benefit (efficiency), sometimes to our detriment. In certain situations, virtual meetings cannot replace physical meetings – dating comes to mind.

“Gardel Monument.” Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia

“Gardel Monument” is an image I made in Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia, in February 2022. It is one of the most interesting monuments in any Philadelphia cemetery, but few people have ever seen it. Why? Well, Mount Vernon has been closed to the public for decades. Its grand entrance stands at the intersection of Ridge and Lehigh Avenues, directly across from Laurel Hill Cemetery. Many people think it is an extension of Laurel Hill, but it is not. It is derelict and had not been maintained. 

Abandoned cemeteries have always piqued my curiosity, and I have photographed, researched, and lectured about them over the years. My virtual lectures on the destruction of Philadelphia’s Monument Cemetery (est. 1837, destroyed 1956) were popular during COVID, when podcasts and virtual gatherings became the norm. Abandoned cemeteries loomed large in my four-year odyssey. I was approached to write a book on the topic in 2023, and completed it in 2024. Abandoned and Forgotten Cemeteries of Philadelphia and its Environs will be published in 2025 by Fonthill Media. 

I researched many other cemeteries for the book, some that were saved like Mount Vernon, some that were not so lucky. The book also covers cemeteries that have disappeared – either moved or simply built over. I met many interesting people and dragged some friends into the fray as I visited (and revisited) many of these sites as I conducted my research.

While it was never legally abandoned, Mount Vernon Cemetery was locked up and left to ruin from around 2000 to 2020. Nature grew and wreaked havoc, endangering monuments and statuary while thieves stole bronze doors from its mausoleums. It was derelict to the degree that in the past, it might have been levelled and a strip mall built over it. In 2020, a Friends group and a conservation group stepped in to stabilize the cemetery and its buildings, essentially pulling it back from the brink of destruction (and pulling it away from its former owner). It is quite the cosseted property at this point.

"Snow Flower"

Lastly, the photo you see here, “Snow Flower,” was in two art exhibitions in 2024. First in a group show sponsored by the Montgomery County Guild of Professional Artists at 431 Gallery, King of Prussia, PA, and later in the year in a two-artist exhibit at Box Spring Gallery in Philadelphia. In the latter show, entitled, “Ghosts,” I had nine snow-related cemetery images on display. I’ve slowly begun to get back into public display of my photography, with gallery shows and events like the annual “Market of the Macabre” at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. 

To summarize, I’ve been fairly active, artistically, since COVID. Physically, not so much. The pandemic stifled a lot of things in the world, but it did invigorate my creativity. I hit 64 years of age in 2022 and health-wise, the wheels began to fall off. George Harrison was quite prescient in the Beatles’ song, When I’m Sixty-Four. In February 2024 I fell on the ice in a cemetery and tore a rotator cuff. That April, I got a hip replacement. So while I’m still active artistically, my days of jumping off walls into abandoned cemeteries are over. But for all you youngsters out there reading this, please jump off as many walls into abandoned cemeteries as you can. And as they say in the Hunger Games, may the odds be forever in your favor. 

Cemetery Meetups

Cemetery Meetup at The Woodlands Cemetery, Philadelphia

Back in the fall of 2021 (when we were thinking that we were all successfully pulling out of the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-Omicron variant), I got this idea in my head that it would be a cool social exercise to get some Instagram cemetery photographers together for an outing at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia. I invited mostly people I’ve never physically met. About ten of us showed up – several whom I invited, and some people who THOSE people invited. The only commonality was that these were seriously good photographers who shared a common interest – posting cemetery photography on Instagram.

Mount Moriah Cemetery, Yeadon, PA side

Our initial outing at Mount Moriah went so well that we all decided to do it again. After some conversation, we all realized that we each had explored many cemeteries that the others had not. Thanks to Jenn O’Donnell (IG link), our member who organized an IG Meetup link, we all stayed in close contact with each other and took a vote on the next cemetery location at which to meet. Three additional meetups have occurred since that initial one, in cemeteries in southeastern PA and central and south Jersey. We number about twenty “members,” if you want to call us that.

A few things I’ve learned from my fellow necrogeeks (kudos to Timothy for that term!):

• Cemetery nerds have the BEST stories!
• There are funeral strippers in China.
• If you ask at the office for the key to the community mausoleum, they might just give it to you.
• Santeria-type offerings at a gravesite could easily involve live animals.
• There are FAR MORE deaths-head and angelhead gravemarkers outside of New England than I thought.
• Zinc monuments are still controversial.
• Snapseed is a cool, in-phone photo-editing ap - and its free.

Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia and Yeadon, PA.

The photo you see directly above was the first group photo we made. Or rather, I made, actually, to sort of document our initial meetup at Mount Moriah. We only began staging the group shots at our second meetup, at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. We didn’t really know each other well enough, I think, at Mount Moriah, for anyone to suggest a group photo. Plus there was the issue of who was vaccinated and who wasn’t. Also, it might not have occurred to us at the time that we would continue our adventure. I’m not sure who suggested the group photo a month later at Laurel Hill, but it has since become a staple of our gatherings. As more people got vaccinated and boosted, spreading COVID became less of an issue.

Cemeteries need not be places where dreams go to die. As we re-envision what social gatherings should look like in this evolving pandemic, there is one thing that everyone agrees on: outdoor gatherings are safer than indoor ones. So these cemetery meetups appear to be a healthy way to maintain our interactivity as social beings while staying physically safe.

While many cemeteries host official events that draw throngs of people (I realize there might be some of you who are surprised to learn that), such events are carefully planned and quite focused. Our IG meetups are anything but! We just stroll through the cemeteries and graveyards talking, photographing, and perhaps being led to some points of interest by someone who had been there before. We greatly appreciate the hospitality offered by the many open cemetery gates throughout the region, that allow us this opportunity. We also do appreciate the more focused events such as hearse shows, The Market of the Macabre, movie nights, concerts, the Darksome Art and Craft Market, and so on. Such events are all wonderful ways to bring people together, promote small business, and to raise money for the upkeep of the cemeteries.

Evergreen Cemetery, Camden, New Jersey

Victorian-era garden cemeteries of course were designed for large groups of people to visit and enjoy. Before there were parks and museums in the United States, cemeteries were the places you would go to get away from the noise and grit of the cities. They were meant to be calm, contemplative locales, beautifully landscaped in arboreal splendor - a place to revitalize, a place conducive to better physical and mental health. People recognized early in the current pandemic (and especially during lockdown) that cemeteries were in fact the ONLY safe place to congregate. I for one am grateful to all the cemeteries for keeping their gates open and welcoming throughout this time. Hopefully the trend will continue and more people will visit regularly - and I encourage people to donate money to their favorite cemetery to help keep those gates open in the future.

There is, of course, no socially redeeming purpose to cemetery photography itself (or photography in general). As with any art form, it must be shared to offer its greatest value. Interacting with people who share this common interest is exhilarating, at times. Meeting them personally is an added dimension and doing so during the COVID crisis is one of the best things we can do for our mental health. As I write this on the first day of the new year, 2022, the Omicron variant is so widespread that unless we force ourselves into lockdown again, it cannot be avoided. We’ll all get it sooner or later.

COVID has made death more real for many of us (death toll as of January 2, 2022 in the U.S. is 828,732; worldwide it is nearly 5.5 million (ref.)). Probably not since the last pandemic a hundred years ago has death been this concrete. Mentally, this is probably healthier for us – we are now forced to be much more pragmatic about death. Its almost like the present pandemic switched things up: pre-pandemic, death was abstract and society was real (for the most part). During the pandemic, death became more real and society became abstract.

But now with our evolving understanding of COVID-19, we are trying to work our way back to being a society that interacts physically – less screentime and more facetime. Ironically, virtual tools like social media can help us attain this goal. Though Instagram, Facebook, and other social media are quite abstract, we can use these tools to form concrete relationships – to create actual reality from the virtual. Granted, there are situations in which virtual meetings are the only option due to geographic distance, transportation, or the need to reach a larger audience. However, social media can successfully be used as an invitation, an entrée into more fulfilling in-person relationships.

Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

Sometimes timing keeps all the members of our IG group from getting together. I’ve missed a couple meetups, but when I see the results others have posted on IG, it makes me wish I had been able to attend. Creatively, for many of us, these meetups will be a seminal influence on what is yet to come (little inside reference to the hooking tree we discovered in Camden).

We share our knowledge of specific cemeteries we have visited, and benefit greatly from the knowledge of others. These people bring a wealth of research and experience to bear in their work and all have their own reasons for doing what they do. It is evident by the joy and camaraderie at our physical meetups that everyone shares a deep interest in those who have gone before us. But why this interest? Perhaps it has something to do with a comment made by Dave Grohl (of Nirvana and The Foo Fighters) in his autobiography, The Storyteller ...

  “We all carry traits of people we have never met somewhere deep within our chemistry.”

Another view of the photo above in the shade of an immense zinc gravemarker

The Winter of Our Discontent (Shakespeare, not Steinbeck)

My artistic experiences this winter (it is still technically winter here in Philadelphia – Feb. 2021 as I write this) have not been one of discontent. Rather, reckless winter has allowed me the opportunity to photograph cemeteries and their statues under a blanket of snow. Standing in a blizzard with an umbrella and camera may seem ridiculous, but I assure you, it is anything but a fool’s errand. Numb fingers are simply a sign of weakness leaving the body.

Tintype Hipstamatic App image

The zeitgeist of a Victorian snowfall creates a mood of singular isolation. And freedom, of sorts - it takes one out of the literal social isolation forced on us by the current pandemic. And Paul Simon was wrong – everything does NOT look worse in black and white.

Why Shakespeare and not Steinbeck? Shakespeare’s lines from Richard III are lines of opportunity, versus Steinbeck’s, which are pure misery. Granted, the euphoria of photographing a snowfallen cemetery in below-freezing temperatures can be quickly replaced by misery if you mistakenly lock yourself out of your warm, running vehicle (which I have been known to do). However, Shakespeare is optimistic about the future. As am I. The playwright is saying that even though we may now be miserable (‘Now is the winter of our discontent’), better days are coming (’Made glorious summer by this sun …’).  (Cue the song, "Better Things" by the Kinks.)

But I digress (which is one of the qualities you find most endearing about me). My limerence with cemeteries is boosted when it snows. It just is. I have to get out there fast, while it is still snowing, if possible. Primae noctis, as it were. Not than anyone else is even considering doing the same thing, but it does give me the feeling of being first in, a unique time in a place where I can be ultimately alone with my passion. And in the middle of a pandemic, its rather liberating to not concern myself with social distancing or wearing a mask.

So would I recommend this nostrum of shooting angels in the snow? Well, it is certainly easier if you live in a polar climate zone. Its not something I can easily demonstrate to you, however. You just need to get out there in your gloves, boots, and hand warmers, and let the snow muses guide you. Helps to have an SUV, too, so you don’t get stuck. 

I photographed graveyards in the snow quite often this winter. The Snow Demons were appeased last year – they made no appearance. Apparently, COVID must have royally pissed them off, because they have been out in full force, whiting out my world since even BEFORE winter began (our first snowfall was on December 16, 2020)!

Please realize that cemeteries are places of respect - an obvious consideration when you are photographing in them. While there may be no one else around you there in the snowstorm, burial grounds and monuments mean many things to many people. Be respectful as you work. And be careful. Don’t climb on the monuments. Don’t lean on them. I’ve seen a person who had a large gravestone fall on her. She nearly lost her leg. It was crushed, but was later saved. Luckily there were several people around to lift the thousand-pound granite grave marker off her. So consider the possibility of a monument falling on you in a snowstorm. Think anyone would find you before you died of exposure or trauma?

Defunct crematorium in a snow squall

The Gear

So if I have not scared you off the topic at this point, let’s talk about the gear. Obviously, you want your equipment to be either waterproof or well-protected. I own neither. Which is why I typically carry only one camera with me, protected by a snow umbrella. I leave the rest of the photographic arsenal in the car, running back to swap them as needed. This way, I’m guaranteed to lose such things as lens caps and filters in the snow.

Cross-processed E6 image

Do I use real cameras or the camera in my cell phone? As time goes on, this distinction becomes less relevant. I do have an old iPhone 6 which I use quite a bit. Not bad images except the battery peters out in the cold. If I use it outdoors in winter, I have to keep it connected to an external battery. The apps are interesting as well, I use basic Hipstamatic and Hipstamatic Tintype in addition to straight shooting. I do drag conventional cameras out in the snow with me as well. Certainly, digitals are easiest to use. However, I’ve been shooting quite a bit lately with a 120mm (film) Holga and running outdated slide film through a Nikon F3 35mm film camera, then cross-processing the E-6 film as C-41 (which is kind of standard practice now, since E-6 chemistry is no longer widely available). I like to surprise myself. Digital can be too exacting. At right, you can see an example of a cross-processed image.

Hipstamatic Tintype App image 

It has not, historically, snowed often in the Philadelphia area (at least during the current geological epoch). So when it does, I attempt to make the most of it. It helps to have a plan. Which cemeteries are easiest to access? Are the roads plowed? Luckily for me, the graveyard at left is within walking distance of my house! I have some go-to locations and some go-to statues that I like to check in with during a snowfall – some take on the white cloak better than others...

You can see the same cemetery angel dozens of times, but there might be this one time, as you approach it in the hush of a snowfall, bootfalls crunching, that you seem to be seeing it as it had looked long ago. The more modern mass-produced gravestones mostly hidden, the bespoke, Victorian statuary gently “shrouded in white, allowing the outlines of something older to emerge.” The quote is from science fiction writer William Gibson’s novel, Pattern Recognition. A strange book to be reading during a pandemic, when old patterns are nowhere to be found, new ones emerging all around us.

Actual lychgate shot with Hipstamatic Tintype App

So if this seems to be a winter of discontent for you because of the new patterns that life has assumed, consider COVID-19 as a sort of lychgate, a gateway to another world. I wrote a blog for the website of New York’s Absynthe Gallery recently, entitled "Artist in Residence," which is about creating art during lockdown in a pandemic. Challenging, to make art in the Time of COVID. But as Gibson says in Pattern Recognition, "There are times when you can only take the next step. And then another.” If you’re interested in seeing how other artists are adapting, the gallery is hosting an online “Drink and Draw” Zoom meeting with many of its artists on March 6, 2021 (5 to 7 pm). I am in their corral of artists, but I don’t draw (I do drink, however, so I meet half the criteria). Demonstrating how I make photographs or how I write blogs would be about as entertaining as watching gesso dry; therefore, I will be in attendance solely drinking and learning. Here’s the link to register: https://absynthegallery.com/drink-draw/

Learning, you ask? Well yes. One of the best ways for an artist to progress and improve is by expanding boundaries - watching other artists create in mediums other than your own. I leave you with an old image (all that you’ve seen so far in this blog, I created in the past ten months), the Mount Moriah Cemetery gatehouse. This is in Philadelphia. I was truly honored to have it chosen to represent February in the 2021 fund-raising calendar published by The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. Being on the Board of Directors of this volunteer organization and helping to save a formerly abandoned cemetery from total ruin has also been a learning experience. 

"I Returned Your Skulls."

Image by Michael Kauffman 

“What the world needs right now is another endless musing on staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic; the C.D.C. has declared these pieces to be a symptom of COVID-19 that can be treated only by gentle snoring.” -  Libby Gelman-Waxner in her New Yorker article “If You Ask Me: The Last Quarantine Think Piece” (May 18, 2020)

While I agree with the above statement, I’m still going to write this blog. As my friend Mike Spak would say, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

This past summer I was walking up the street toward my house, end of the day, coming home from work. A few neighbors were outside their homes chatting (from an appropriate COVID social distance) – I live on a tiny street of row homes in an old nineteenth-century Philadelphia neighborhood. My neighbor Michael, who lives around the block, addressed me in a relatively loud voice, “Hey Ed, I returned your skulls … left them with your wife.” Ok, that’s a wee bit embarrassing – but in a good way, lol.

I am very selective when it comes to my choice of friends – they have to be anything but normal and boring. And they say the darndest things. One time a few years back I got together after work with a friend to have a beer. We were walking down the street on a Friday evening, lots of people on the sidewalks, summer. I asked him how his day went, as he appeared to be tired out. He sighed and said, “Well, we got all six bodies out of the ground.”  Couldn’t help notice the startled looks we got from those around us! Frank worked in a graveyard, and I knew he was working on a project to move some graves.

Michael, my neighbor, is an artist. He appreciates Caravaggio, a Baroque era painter who seemed to rather enjoy painting people getting their heads chopped off. Some of his art evokes Caravaggio. Over the course of the last few years, Michael and I have each learned a bit about each others’ art. As an aside, I shared with him the fact that I pick up skulls in abandoned graveyards – everyone needs a hobby, right? 

Just to be clear, my skulls are not human skulls. You just don’t run across those as often as you do skulls of other animals - even in abandoned graveyards! 

During the spring/summer 2020 coronavirus lockdown, Michael had been stuck in the house, so he’d spent some of that time creating art. Either he asked to borrow some of my skulls, or I offered them to him, I don’t remember exactly how that went, but he created some startlingly gorgeous photographs with them, which he planned to use as components of larger digitally collaged art work. Michael has a glorious light tent in his garage in which he does digital macrophotography. I was jealous so I had Amazon send me one. Not a garage, a light tent. An inexpensive version of his (mine is shown below).

It was probably in May that I lent Michael my skulls. May was an absurd month, full of fear and coronavirus. Lockdowns and masking. A lot of artists spent this time holed up, creating. In November, Michael shared some of the final results with me, one of which you can see at the top of this blog.

My skulls formerly belonged to an assortment of animals – fox, pitbull, deer, cat, bird, groundhog, etc. They were all found in abandoned cemeteries. I never spent much time photographing them, but after I got my skulls back and saw some of Michael’s preliminary results, I decided to take a stab at it myself. 

Here you see one of my first experiments. This one at left is based on the rainbows everyone had hanging from their homes during the Summer of COVID. Finding and counting rainbows seemed apropos of the time – a way to pretend that you again had some control over your life, and that there was eventually going to be a positive outcome. This image represents both possible outcomes. 

During the lockdown, I was one of the few people allowed on the roads, being a healthcare worker. Every once in a while, I’d stop by a local graveyard to do some photography. Graveyards were one of the only public areas people could visit during lockdown - you were lucky if there was one within walking distance of your home. I wasn’t confined to my house, like most people, but when I was home, I decided to use the time wisely and creatively. Actually, more experimentally and experientially. 

I’m writing this at the tail end of December, 2020. Since March, artists have been lamenting their situation. No galleries or public spaces to display or sell their work. For those who depend on this for income, for a livelihood, this has been devastating. But wait – we all create art in private anyway, right? During lockdown (when was that, mid-March to June?), we were FORCED to work in private, and forced to use whatever we had on hand to create. Hopefully, artists had supplies (yet another advantage of digital over film photography, huh? Otherwise we’d all be stuck with bags of undeveloped film).

COVID is like an entropy puzzle, a puzzle we have to assemble without the benefit of having a picture on the box showing the end result. And just when some of the pieces seem to fit together, they magically change, so they no longer fit. Who knew the pandemic would continue into August, when I began writing this blog? That was two weeks before virtual school began for the world’s children. Distance learning, two words that I am now convinced are mutually exclusive. Now it’s the end of December, 2020, and we don’t even have the border of the puzzle completed. The new normal, life in a pandemic.

As artists, we sometimes need to get out of our old wheelhouse – we need a kick in the ass to get those creative juices flowing. For some artists, COVID is that KITA. It seemed to influence Michael Kauffman’s work – see his gorgeous tombstone image below!

I intended to close this piece by bookending the opening New Yorker quote with these lyrics from the band Cracker’s song, “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now):”

“…what the world needs now

Is a new kind of tension, …

'Cause the old one just bores me to death…”

So that’s good for artists (and maybe others) who needed the COVID KITA to move their art (or their lives) to the next level. However, I watched musician Devin Townsend’s Christmas Concert performance the other day, and this quote from his song “My Life,” is a kinder, gentler way to say goodbye to 2020:

“How long can this life go on? Who we are, what we are. See you on the other side."

- (Devin Townsend - Acoustic Christmas Special (Live 12-23-2020) - YouTube) 

Further Adventures:

See Michael Kauffman’s artwork on Flickr: Michael Kauffman | Flickr

New Devils Require New Gods

During the Corona spring and summer of 2020, I felt compelled to mask cemetery statues. A flaw in my personality, I suppose. I didn’t leave the masks on and I did no damage in the act. Initially, I don’t know why I did it. I published a few images and received a handful of comments from upset people. 

Comments like “I was saddened by our beautiful Angels with paper masks covering their exquisite faces - the angels should not be weighted down by human error.”

Exquisite faces, indeed. After months of people wearing masks, I miss all your exquisite faces. I meant no disrespect by masking angels. We created them in our own image, after all. Or more accurately, we created them in our idealized, Western world Christian image. Angels – both male and female, are the supermodels, the Barbie and Ken perfect versions of our white selves. Since we must now mask ourselves and hide our beautiful faces, I wanted to see what these icons looked like, masked. If we must mask, why shouldn’t they? But you know, if we all end up wearing masks for the next year, maybe we NEED unmasked, beautiful statues to remind us of the way things were? Of the goal, the way things should be? Are they a sign of hope? Optimism? Maybe I’m taking this away from people by masking them. 

“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.”― Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

I suppose I need to be careful, though - blasphemy and heresy are no laughing matter. In past centuries, such an act could get you killed, defacing statues or paintings of the gods, or public figures. But as Louise Erdrich says in her novel, Tracks, (1989, Harper & Row), “new devils require new gods.” I’m not going to define this statement for you right now. Take from it what you will. Perhaps its about our response to the coronavirus pandemic. When I create art, I want the viewer to take what they can from it. Most likely it speaks to them differently than it speaks to me. I have always defined my art as minimally as possible – I want the viewer to find their own meaning in it. I don’t even like to title my photographic images. Even that narrows things down too much.

Erdrich’s novel, Tracks, is about Indian (yes, she uses that proper name) tribes “struggling to keep what remained of their lands” in last century America. Native American land and all other freedoms were slowly taken from them very much like our present freedoms are slowly being taken from us by coronavirus. We are struggling to keep what remains of our world. Big difference, however, is that while the white settlers of this “new” land benefitted greatly from the indigenous peoples’ loss, no one benefits from the loss due to COVID-19. Unless, of course, it is some evil plot hatched by the spotted lanternfly.

Would George Washington Wear a Face Mask in 2020? No!

People thought I would have more respect for angels and other works of art - I might just as well have “purchased a can of spray paint & had [my] way with these historic & immortal figures!” (“Immortal,” let’s come back to that thought later.) One could say the same of the person who doctored up this painting of George Washington, I suppose. But its all about having the freedom to express oneself, to make a point. Here’s an image below that should really rile up the masses. Old folks need to protect them selves from their kids, who may be asymptomatic COVID-carriers. 

One of the problems with freedom is that people are free to believe anything they like. For months, there was no consistent, insistent decree from our nation’s leaders that we should wear face masks to stop the spread of coronavirus. Should we or shouldn’t we? We were free to believe whatever suited us. Now, of course, it is becoming quite clear that face masks should have been worn all this time. (Wait – shouldn’t our guardian angels have appeared in masks to carry us to salvation? Sorry, getting a bit sarky there.) 

Tensions Mount 

The raw emotion that has surfaced over my masked statuary is a good thing. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do? Make you think? Make you emote? Maybe you love it, hate it, or are indifferent. Maybe that’s how you also view the whole face mask thing in general. 

The issues people have with wearing masks are multitudinous. George Hofmann in his Psych Central article, The Fight Over Facemasks, mentions a few of these. “The science behind wearing a mask seems pretty simple, and among scientists and doctors there’s near universal agreement that wearing masks will prevent transmission and greatly reduce the number of people who contract the virus.” If you don’t believe this, go watch movies about hospitals and research labs.

Hofmann adds, “That’s why I think there’s a lot more to the anger over masks than respect for the health of others or individual liberties.” People’s anger and rage is evident by the almost daily reports like this, an incident that occurred on July 31, 2020. A customer of a cigar store in Bethlehem, PA, shot at the clerk with a handgun when the customer got upset over the store’s masking policy (link to story).

In this chaotic time - new devils require new gods. New problems require new solutions (one interpretation of this statement). The masking quarrel reminds me of the story of Dr. Charles Meigs, a nationally recognized Philadelphia obstetrician, who in the 1850s singlehandedly transmitted infectious and sometimes deadly diseases to hundreds of his patients. Why? He didn’t believe in washing his hands! He didn’t believe he needed to clean his surgical instruments. He didn’t believe there were such things as infectious diseases. He felt that God was on his side, and he could do no wrong! God, can you believe that? Meigs inadvertently killed many of his obstetrical patients as a result of his stubbornness and grandstanding. He simply refused to believe what we all now know, that a basic way to prevent the transmission of infectious disease is good hand hygiene.  (Read the whole Meigs story in my blog post, “Infectious Diseases and Charles Meigs, M.D.”)

Dr. Charles Meigs's grave, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia

As I write this in August 2020, we are really still in the discovery phase of this disease, coronavirus. We don’t know how to control it yet, so why argue about face masks? Why not just err on the side of caution? How many of our politicians remind you of Dr. Meigs? How much of our general population reminds you of Dr. Meigs?

George Hofmann offers that the real source of anger is usually hidden behind what we’re fighting over. He opines that “people have felt disaffected and forgotten by the society they see portrayed in the media for a long time.” Sound familiar? As average citizens, we just don’t measure up to the media ideal of ourselves. We are not, nor ever will be, Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. Hofmann feels that people generally feel ignored, mere background noise. Proles. He says that putting a mask over their faces, “making them anonymous and unheard [literally], can be a source of great anger.”

We created angels in our ideal image – maybe that’s one reason its so hard to see them masked. The goals of purity, perfection, and escape (perhaps only attainable in the afterlife?) all of a sudden may not seem possible. “Immortality,” as mentioned earlier, may now seem impossible. By masking angels, am I symbolically closing the Heavenly Gates on the viewer? Am I suggesting, as John Cale does in his song, Fear, that “we’re already dead, just not yet in the ground…?” 

But I want to end this missive on a high note, something optimistic. How about this: new devils require new gods. Think about that. 

Further Reading:

George Hofmann’s book Resilience: Handling Anxiety in a Time of Crisis (2020, Changemakers Books), is available here.

Cemetery Socializing

Allyson, Ed, and Owen outside Mt. Vernon Cemetery, Phila.

Back in the late fall of 2017, my friend Owen let me know that he’d be visiting the U.S. in February, and invited me to do some graveyard photography. Owen lives in France, not far from Pere Lachaise, so I always found it ironic that he could find any cemetery outside of Paris very interesting. But he does. And he has photographed and explored them the world over, with stunning results. The previous year he and I hiked through the infamous, massive, formerly-abandoned Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia.

Owen and I met as Facebook friends some years ago, and appreciate each other’s photography. Toward the end of 2017, I made the acquaintance of another cemetery photographer, Allyson Pettigrew, this time through Instagram. She is, in my opinion, a rising star in the cemetery photography genre. I introduced Allyson to Owen via Instagram, and we started following each other’s work.

Allyson photographing zinc memorial

I suggested to Owen that we ask Allyson to join us when the time came for his visit to the states. He agreed. Such an easy thing to, back in the pre-Coronavirus days. Just plan to get together and then do it. Not so easy today. With the world locked down here in April 2020, social-distancing is the norm and we’re all sheltering in place (unless you need food). No one knows how or when the COVID-19 pandemic will end. We wax nostalgic for the good old days when we could carry a social media virtual “friendship” forward into the realm of ACTUAL friendship – then follow those actual friends as they consider climbing over a fence into an abandoned graveyard. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mount Peace Cemetery angel

When February 2018 rolled around, Owen hit town. The three of us agreed to meet at Mount Peace Cemetery in Philadelphia, check out Mount Vernon (through its bars, as it has been subject to its own form of lockdown for many years, i.e., off limits to the public), and then head over to Laurel Hill Cemetery, just across Ridge Avenue. All three cemeteries are just about next to each other. Quite convenient for us cemetery travelers.

Mount Peace Cemetery monument

After introductions and handshaking (gee, how many years will it be until people do THAT anymore?), we spent some time exploring Mount Peace and gazing longingly through the bars of a rhyme – as the Dire Straits song goes – actually, through the bars into the unkempt Mount Vernon Cemetery. (That's my selfie of us at the top of this article, looking through the bars into Mount Vernon.) Owen had a monster lens, so he was able to some great shots. We chatted about our work, strolled Mount Peace’s grounds, and photographed some monuments. We appreciated each others’ company based on a mutual respect for each others’ work.

Mount Vernon Cemetery from the locked entrance gate

When I first noticed Allyson’s work on Instagram, I would linger on the images as they seemed so familiar. I realized she was from Philly, as I am, and so it was not surprising that she photographed many of the same monuments in the same cemeteries as I had over the years. The disturbing fact, however, was that her images were BETTER than mine, lol! Do check out her Instagram feed @allyson_underland.

Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia

It really is useful to me, as a photographer, to see the same scene from another photographer’s perspective. Years ago, I used to photograph with a friend who was considerably shorter than me. She would complain that I was able to get a high vantage point (being 6’2”) for my compositions while she was not able. Truth is, I enjoyed her images immensely because they were made from angles I naturally did not utilize.

Owen with his ultrazoom lens!

On the other hand, I greatly admire Owen’s work, primarily because he travels to such far-flung exotic places that I will never see. His Instagram images of the graveyards in the Atacama Desert in Chile, for instance, are nothing short of spine-chilling. Do check out his Instagram feed @owenphil333.

Ed and Allyson, with friends at Laurel Hill Cemetery

Owen, Allyson, and I headed over to Laurel Hill Cemetery afterward – did I mention that it was c-c-c-COLD that day?! I don’t recall the temperature but I’m pretty sure it was below freezing. This image of the Schuylkill River (at left) from Laurel Hill Cemetery (above Kelly Drive) epitomizes the weather that day. We walked around, photographed monuments, and generally compared notes on the art of photography.

Owen at Laurel Hill (above and below)

Owen spirited off the next day for further adventures in New Orleans, and I was glad he stopped by to spend some time with Allyson and I. His parting words were, “What kind of people would be out photographing cemeteries in the dead of winter? – the best kind!”

Photography is about sharing - sharing a bit of yourself, some of your work, and hopefully learning something in the process. In Coronavirus times, the best we can do is share online. Many galleries are putting up ad hoc galleries to share art via the internet, since we physically can’t hang things on walls for groups of people to see. Yes, I know, the internet has been moving us in this direction for some time – maybe I’m just late for the bus. Still, with all this isolation, don’t you miss just a little human interaction? Maybe COVID-19 is giving us an idea what virtual reality would REALLY be like if we all just sat in front of our computers. Man cannot live by the internet alone.