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. 

Do You See What I See…

Do You See What I See…?

No, this is not a Christmas blog, even though I am posting it as 2023 ends and 2024 begins. Maybe its about seeing into the future. I don’t see the way you do, and you don’t see the way I do. Does that make either of us wrong? Not only is it healthy to see things from another’s point of view, but it can also help your creativity.

What other people see

I posted the image above on Instagram and Facebook recently and had a comment that said, “For all the time I’ve spent there, I’ve never seen this!”

Even if the person HAD seen the stone, they would never have seen it, or captured its image, that way that I did. The monument is in Laurel hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. It sits atop a small, steep incline, and from the road, it doesn’t look that interesting (you can’t see the words). Remember when you went trick or treating in the suburbs as a kid? Was there a house up a hill that seemed like too much effort for a candy bar, so you skipped it?

I replied to the comment that its interesting how other people see the same thing differently. It happens to me a lot. Lighting and the direction you’re facing changes everything! Think about flea markets - you walk down the aisles in both directions, right? Otherwise, you miss stuff. Some years ago I found this awesome postmortem photograph in a vintage frame at a punk rock flea market. Got it for twenty-five bucks! Interesting thing is that I spotted it on my second trip down that aisle, in the opposite direction.

Once you do find that cemetery treasure during your next jaunt, how do you want to capture it in an image? It is true what Barthes says about a photograph (in his book, Camera Lucida), that it captures the death of something. So you cannot go back and capture the same cemetery image someone else did (or even the one I captured myself on an earlier excursion). You’d have to reproduce the angle of entry, composition, lighting, time of year, and so on. Impossible. But that’s what makes photography art. That's what makes a photograph singular.

PERSPECTIVE

I have often been jealous of images other photographers have made of the same scenes, same cemetery monuments that I have photographed. Theirs, at times, seem much better than my captures. But that’s how we learn, right? Art in general, gives us ideas for how we can improve our own art. And, it can be painstakingly frustrating at times. I used to photograph cemeteries with a friend who was easily a foot shorter than me. Just that difference in elevation provided entirely new perspectives on a given scene.

The easy way to see things differently (and maybe catch something that you missed before) is to make the extra effort to visit the same sites again. Park on the opposite side and walk in a direction you’re not used to. I have visited THE SAME CEMETERIES dozens of times! I typically find something I missed before.

Cemeteries and their monuments are not static. Stone erodes, visitors place decorations (or bury things), sometimes there is vandalism. And everything looks different under a blanket of snow. Shoot at the edges of the day – a low sun on the horizon throws warmer light and creates long shadows.

AFTER-CAPTURE PROCESSING

Plus, you’re probably not looking to simply document the existence of a gravemarker – you’re probably looking to create some artistic image, right? So go abstract. Use a photo editing ap like Hipstamatic, the one I used to capture the image at top. Perhaps you can try simple black and white, for a more abstract look. Most camera phones will let you change to black and white easily.

Straight camera phone shot of the same scene (rather boring, right?)

When I look at this standard, snapshot-style image above, it doesn’t really do anything for me. The stone is a powerful statement, but somehow a simple photograph does not project that message, that intent. Barthes might have said that the viewer should read in this photograph the “distress of a recent bereavement” (Camera Lucida). How to capture that feeling? A tintype ap can give this scene a very dated look, as tintypes were around in the Victorian era when this stone was carved.

Image edited with Hipstamatic tintype ap.

You’ll notice that the stone is lit with horizontal sunlight, which casts a shadow from the cross atop the "Crushed Hopes" grave marker. The angled sun also gives definition to the letters. If the face of the stone was lit with direct sunlight, you might not even see the letters.

Use Snapseed (camera phone image editor) or your camera (or camera phone’s) own photo editing software to create an image you like, one that successfully captures a mood. There are no rules! You’re not so much altering reality as creating a more accurate version of what you saw. I guess you might say that I am not an “incorruptible servant of artistic truth” as classical guitar maestro Segovia said about the composer Tedesco in 1939!

"Frozen Warnings," by Ed Snyder

A few hours before writing this blog, I drove over to Dirty Frank’s Bar, home of Philadelphia’s Off The Wall gallery. There was a recent group exhibit of art work, and one of my two pieces that was juried into the show was sold. I was picking up the unsold piece. I walked in and said hello to the curator who apologized that my second piece had sold. Hardly a wasted trip! That second piece you see above. I call it "Frozen Warnings." It is an image layered with two of my cemetery photographs. I was really happy with the image, and humbled that a stranger liked it enough to purchase it. "Frozen Warnings" is a composite of two cemetery images, neither of which I was truly happy with. But you know, when you're not happy with something, the end of the story can start today.

Epilogue

Maybe your hopes were crushed in some way last year. Artistically, perhaps you hit a wall. Horror author Grady Hendrix wrote, “Christmas is a time to be haunted by our memories, for every Christmas is our first Christmas without.” (This is from his 2023 article, How the Holidays Became Haunted,  https://www.tor.com).

Hendrix was talking about loved ones lost, but maybe we can think of it as old habits lost?  A few years ago I spent back to back New Years Days (two successive years) exploring an abandoned cemetery. Since then, I’ve developed arthritis in my hip so I think my days of jumping off walls into abandoned cemeteries are over. But if you stay creative, and are open to new ideas, there will always be new worlds to explore. The soul wants adventure.

And then there is luck, right? A red fox appears out of nowhere and poses in front of a tombstone. A parade of Harleys pours into the cemetery for a biker funeral. As they say in the Hunger Games stories, may the odds ever be in your favor.