As you may recall from our last episode, I spent some time photographing
an abandoned cemetery and had a bit of a challenge getting out afterwards. So
when the opportunity arose to return to the same site two days later, I licked
my wounds, cuts, scrapes, and bruises and jumped at the opportunity. You know
what they say about lost opportunity: “a squandered gift, a wasted day, time
chases life away” (at least the band Slaid Cleaves says so in their song,
“Sinner’s Prayer”).
How did this come about? Well, some friends of mine
expressed interest in photographing this same site, folks who like me,
appreciate the beauty in entropy. It was such an amazing place, that I could
not resist a second visit. I was to meet them nearby and we would all climb the
fence into the graveyard. We met at the appointed hour; however, I misjudged
the expected activity at the site next door. This had been staid on my last
visit; now, it was now teeming with activity. Backhoes digging, pickup trucks
zooming around. So we found a climbable section of the fence, out of view of
the construction people. My companions, who were much younger and more limber
than I, had no difficulty getting up the fence and down the vine-covered tree
on the other side. I had some difficulty, the final portion of my trip
culminating with a slide down yonder which scraped a few inches of skin on my
forearm. But hey, no guts, no glory.
Off we trudged into the old, gnarly graveyard. Sky was
clear, weather was cold. This particular area was easy to walk through, but
just ahead we could see hillocks of invasive mile-a-minute weeds engulfing
monuments, headstones, and everything else in its path. Looked like a lunar
landscape of dead farmland, or something. The cemetery is preserved, but not in
a way that it was intended. Trees, growing at odd angles, their crooked
branches strangled by vines, are so huge that they dwarf and enshroud
thirty-foot tall obelisks. You wonder if old cemetery trees look as they do
partly because of the arsenic and other nasty embalming chemicals in the soil.
While my prior visit to Elysian Fields (not its real name, as
you may have guessed) offered a
splendid opportunity for independent study, this visit would be otherwise. Shooting
with others forces you to see things differently, sometimes to see things their
way. It’s also safer if you’re not by yourself – who knows what you’d come upon
in such a place - thieves stealing bronze doors off mausoleums, animals, or
worse. I pointed out some familiar locations to my fellow photographers. At
least one member of the party had never been in here, and it’s interesting to
see that look of wide-eyed wonder on someone when you know they appreciate the initial
experience as much as you did. Kind of like when a friend took me to the movies
when Jaws was first released. He had seen the film a couple days before and
knew when all the scary parts would happen. Instead of watching the movie at
those times, he watched me to see my reaction!
I can describe this old graveyard to the best of my ability,
but it really is not something that can be adequately expropriated by word or
even image (though I am satisfied with the images I made). On a smaller scale,
it would be akin to me describing or photographing the Grand Canyon and
expecting you to appreciate it as if you were there.
This was the type of day that achieves meteorological
perfection, photography-wise. During my visit two days before, I must admit I
was rather in a fugue state:
kind of an altered state of consciousness in which you move about purposely but
are not fully aware. Almost like the Stendhal Syndrome. The place has that kind
of effect on you. Even with four of us moving around making photographs,
reading epitaphs, little was spoken. There was little interaction as each
individual took in the scene though his own filter.
Did it seem anti-climactic for me to be here a second time
just days after my last visit? I might say that I wasn’t filled to the brim
with a sense of purpose, though such photographic plentitude allowed me to
concentrate on more detail than before. I made better and closer photographs of
the monuments, I went inside the mausoleums whose doors were ajar. True, I was familiar with the terrain and
locations of certain monuments, but repeatedly walking through a cemetery does
not repeat the experience. You can never step into the same river twice. The
weather changes, the lighting changes – even if you are there at the same time
of day as I was two days before!
Though it was a sunny day, it was again cold – in the
forties. Tomorrow it would rain, the next day it would turn sharply colder and snow.
The angels and mourning women care not, as they commune in the shadows of giant
obelisks and monuments. The famous and not so famous comingle throughout this
vast sculpture garden, the tangles of foliage giving evidence of Nature trying
to reclaim her territory.
As we enter beckoning mausoleums with their missing stained
glass windows, it is evident that theft occurs. No one legitimately comes in
here, save the very occasional descendant. I notice a couple of fresh Christmas
wreaths lying at the base of two headstones, their dried-up predecessors lying
outside the plot area. Weird. Aside from this, everything looks as if in
suspended animation, but from what year? 1970? 1940? 1910? Difficult to say. In
its present state, this place has an immense amount of character, and is one of
the most photographically interesting abandoned sites in the history of
history.
Typically cemeteries offer distinct boundaries between the
sacred and the profane, but this place is quite the opposite. There is memory preservation
here, and that’s good. But perpetual care? Not so much. The child buried
beneath the statue (in the photo below) will always be a child. John Barrymore’s legend will live
through the ages, but who visits and honors his grave? A cemetery is a way of
preserving things. Not necessarily the past, more like the present. This
forsaken old Victorian graveyard is not just who we were, it is also who we are. However, I’ve learned to keep an open mind about such abandoned sites as
this – just because it is not kept up does not mean people don’t care about it.
All the while I was at Elysian Fields I was getting texts and cell phone calls. Rather annoying
and couldn’t concentrate. So I decided to leave before the others were done. I
had an ulterior motive, I must confess: I was not keen on having witnesses to
my expected ungraceful exit over the fence! So I made my way through the weeds,
back behind the beyond where I expected to find safe passage home.
Unfortunately, the backhoes were now digging right there! Second best, I would
attempt to climb the tree where we had come in, and hop the fence at that point. I managed to get to the top of the barbed-wire fence by
pulling myself up the tree like freaking George of the Jungle when – a pickup
truck zoomed into view! I did not want anyone to see me, though I wasn’t at all
sure they would even care, so I loosened my gloved grip and the vines gave way!
The only thing that broke my six-foot fall were all the dry-rotted tree
branches lying on the ground. They say our physical senses reflect our current
belief system. If that is indeed the case, I believe I just fell out of a tree.
But they also say that the responsibility for our pain is our own.
After checking to make sure nothing else was broken, I got
pissed off and grabbed the nearest vine and pulled myself up to the top off the
fence, damn the pickup trucks. I got to the top, saw no one in site and made a
break for it. I dropped down the opposite side, grabbed my photography gear,
and walked nonchalantly across the grounds to my car. As nonchalantly as I
could with torn pants and sticks and leaves sticking out of my hair.
Creating abandoned site photographs is exhilarating. The
danger is evident in every picture. This is probably why I enjoy similar work
by others – I know how difficult it is to gain access to these places. I appreciate others’ work, when it is something that I myself may be too scared to attempt.
Please click here to read part one of this story:
A New Year - A New Abandoned Cemetery
