Gatehouse in the Snow

What you see here is the 1855 brownstone gatehouse at Philadelphia's Mount Moriah Cemetery. I've photographed it many times over the years, under many environmental conditions. The photo above is one of my favorites, one that I made in the winter of 2015-16. Its is one of the last images I made of the historic structure in its crumbling, original condition. It was shored up with braces and scaffolding a few months after I took the photograph, as you can see below. A wonderful sight, from the perspective of historical preservation, but less picturesque, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Taking a Photograph
I purposely used the words "taking a photograph" in the paragraph above. The phrase, which many people use, feeds the misconception that the snowfall photo was there for anyone, with any level of photographic ability, with any camera, to simply "take." Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, I had to care enough about my subject to want to make the image. I serve on the all-volunteer Board of Directors of The Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. whose express purpose is saving this formerly abandoned, Victorian-era cemetery, from ruin. Documenting our progress in an artistic yet journalistic fashion is important to me.

A Bit about Photography
One of the reasons I wrote my book, Digital Photography for the Impatient, was to help the novice digital point-and-shooter get the most out of that expensive digital camera they just purchased. Invariably, novice photographers are dissatisfied with the results they get from today's digital point-and-shoots (which includes camera phones). Why is that?

Purchase Ed's book from Amazon.com

Well, regardless of what the advertisements would lead you to believe, most cameras are not smart enough to compensate for the user's lack of photographic knowledge. Except outdoors in the bright sun - then ALL cameras work just fine! Even the five-dollar throwaway cameras. That's because the photographic process depends on light, and lots of it. So in a nutshell, if you want to make successful photographs under all conditions (birthday parties, portrait settings, group photos, pets, concerts, to name a few), you need to know a bit about basic photographic principles. For this reason I dedicate a few chapters of my book to such things as available light photography, depth of field, composition, shutter speed, etc.

It  would be wonderful if your camera would just automatically make the photograph you see in your mind, but cameras don't do that. They still require human input, most obviously in terms of composition. I could own the most expensive camera in the world, but it alone could never have made the snowfall image of the old gatehouse. I had to make the conscious decision to drive out to Mount Moriah Cemetery WHILE it was snowing for the express purpose of capturing the image I had in my mind's eye. Cameras are simply tools, a means to a creative end. Some are more fun to use than others, some are more expensive.While I own a myriad of cameras, ranging from toy film cameras to full-frame digital SLRs, I did in fact choose to use a cell phone camera for the gatehouse image.Why?

Some cameras happen to be more convenient than others, like the one in my iPhone. I always have it with me, right? It's always there just in case. By virtue of its size, I can carry it through the snow, hold an umbrella over my head, and very easily make the photograph I want. I can't hold my expensive DSLR with one hand in a snowstorm to make such a photograph - its too big and heavy. I also don't want to risk dropping it. The other interesting thing about smartphone photography for me, is that it has lured me into the realm of social media-shared color photography. Prior to digital photography, I created mainly black and white film images, mainly of cemetery statuary (see my Blurb.com book, Stone Angels). Digital photography got me interested more in color imagery, and the iPhone got me interested in sharing these images with a wider social audience (e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, etc.).

Purchase Ed's Stone Angels from Blurb.com

So as much as I love the snowfall image of the gatehouse, there are severe drawbacks to smartphone cameras. I could go on forever about what they are, but suffice it to say that the image quality is not very good. Forget that megapixel count - the smaller the image sensor, the smaller the individual pixels; therefore, the less information they can store. Smartphone camera images cannot compete with the image quality of a full-frame DSLR.

Jag.gr's 645 Pro app

You can tinker with your smartphone camera to make it behave better, to allow greater flexibility and creativity, by installing an app such as Jag.gr's 645 Pro. I used this in my iPhone to make the snowfall image. Another option to improve your smartphone photos is with after-capture photo-editing software, either in-camera or externally, afterwards, on a computer.

The Future?
An intriguing product is about to appear on the market that may give us the best of ALL worlds - The Light company's soon-to-be-released multi-lens L16 camera. While I have not used this camera, it has some features that are well worth exploring. For one, it is about the same size as a smartphone, captures video, and is web-enabled.

The Light company's L16 camera

The compact camera, due out in 2017, uses multiple lenses to capture various focus points in the image scene (see the Light company's website for more detail). It boasts a 28-150mm optical zoom equivalent (optical zooms being superior to digital zooms, which smartphone cameras use). PetaPixel says the L16 "packs 16 separate cameras across its surface that simultaneously expose photos at different focal lengths. The resulting images are combined into high-resolution, 52-megapixel photos." The multiple lenses of the camera supposedly allow you to adjust depth of field after capture, a very cool feature. This solves one of the great problems with digital cameras, especially smartphone cameras: due to their design, they cannot provide the shallow depth of field we like in our macro, sports, and portrait photographs.

Now, you should realize by now that high resolution does not a good photo make. You can have a poorly composed, exposed, or focused image with very high resolution. Objective sources will of course analyze, quantify, and publish their results relating to the L16's image capture capabilities after the camera is released.

I personally, would love to put this new technology through its paces. Listing at $1699, it is no amateur's camera. If in fact it provides the same image quality as a DSLR, in addition to all the other advertised features, the price is a bargain. For more information, please see the Light company's website and this Digital Photography Review article (check this site for a review in the future).

Related websites:
Ed Snyder's Photographycoach.com
EdSnyderPhotography.com
Ed Snyder's Stoneangels.net

Cemeteries across the Commodore Barry Bridge

Ed Snyder (Photo by Robert Reinhardt)

Back in the fall and out of the blue, my friend Bob and I found ourselves with a few hours open in our schedules. We planned a road trip into South Jersey for the next Sunday morning (not terribly far as we both live in Philadelphia). Always in search of the interesting old graveyard, I suggested we drive across the Commodore Barry Bridge to see what that area had to offer.

The Greater Philadelphia area is replete with cemeteries, big and small. I’ve traveled quite a bit around the area in the past fifteen years and have not visited them all! Back in the olden days – like ten years ago – you had to rely on paper maps and written directions to find the graveyard you were after. One of the new technologies that makes these sacred tracts of land easy to locate these days are the GPS map Apps in smart phones. For example, with the Apple iPhone 6, simply type in the words “cemetery near Philadelphia” and the map lights up with little red push pins all over (indicating cemeteries in this region) and a cursor showing your location (let’s assume you are driving a car). Simply drive toward one of the red pins, and your cursor on the map will follow!

When you find yourself somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, you need all the help you can get. Guardian angels notwithstanding, the smart phone map app can be very useful. As we drove south across the Barry Bridge on Route 322, we didn’t see any cemetery dots for about twelve miles, until we came to the Swedesboro/Mullica Hill area. We found and tramped through three cemeteries that day.

Lake Park Cemetery

Our first stop was Lake Park Cemetery, a smallish suburban cemetery in the town of Woolwich, “situated high on a wooded hill and overlooking the placid waters of Lake Narriticon,” according to the Swedesboro cemetery guide brochure, “Alive with History.” This informative text goes on to say that Lake Park “has been considered one of the most beautiful and enduring cemeteries in the state.” Hmm. Perhaps winter is not the peak season here. I should probably return when the trees and flowers are in bloom.

Toy cars on a child's grave

Water pump, Lake Park Cemetery

The place was pretty desolate, although well cared for. There was a car at the office building and a quaint red water pump nearby. A few mausoleums stood on the high ground (that's a photo of me in the doorway of one at the beginning of this article), and most of the stonework was covered with lichens. This damp, shady cemetery would have looked great photographed with color infrared Ektachrome film, back in the day. With an orange filter, the lovely green lichens would be red, the stone would be grey, and the leaves would be, perhaps yellow? I used to shoot this stuff all the time, and although you can digitally simulate black and white infrared film, simulating color IR is a bit trickier.

Photo by Robert Reinhardt

But I digress. Like the lichens, there were many interesting details if one took the time to look. The leaf-covered cars on a child’s grave that you see in the photo above was quite a sobering scene. On the lighter side, I asked Bob to make a few photos of me here at Lake Park (like the one at left) for scale – where else but in New Jersey would you find a plastic leaf rake as part of the decorative grave installation?

Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery

Trinity Episcopal Church and grave yard

Our next stop – the nearest red stick pin on my iPhone map App, was Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, about a mile away. The original “Old Swede’s” church sits across Second Street from the current and much larger church, its large graveyard alongside it. Colonial Swedes (hence the name Swedesboro) settled in the area in the late 1600s. According to Wikipedia, “The congregation was founded as a Swedish Lutheran parish in 1703 after local residents tired of crossing the river to Delaware or Philadelphia to worship.” Rowing across a river to attend church! Now THAT is religious fervor!

The church’s graveyard has been here since 1703. According to the informative online brochure Swedesboro NJ – Alive with History, “Many graves of the early Swedes, Finns, Native Americans and African Americans are now un-marked but plots are shown on a parchment map dating to the mid-1800s.” However, headstones dating back to 1721 are still standing. One of the grave stones no longer standing is that of Eric Mullica, who arrived on this continent in 1638. His sons founded the nearby town of Mullica Hill. A commemorative plaque stands in the graveyard in memory of these pioneer settlers.

Mortonson-Schorn Log Cabin, Swedesboro

We don’t see a lot of ornamentation here in the old Trinity Church grave yard, just standard headstones. The first thing I noticed was a newer red marble headstone inscribed, “My Mother’s Grave” near the church, and a small old log cabin on the far (east) side of the graveyard. Turns out this cabin is “one of the oldest original log cabins of early Swedish-Finnish architecture in the United States” (ref.). Known as the Mortonson-Schorn Log Cabin, it was built in 1654 by “Morton Mortonson, the grandfather of John Morton, who signed the Declaration of Independence … Prior to and during the Civil War, the Mortonson-Schorn Cabin was used as a station for the Underground Railroad.”

Ivy, ferns, flowers, and other leafy designs

Across a small street from the graveyard is the “new” Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, which was created in 1812 when the original one near the church filled up. We see lot of floral-motifs on many of the stones here – marble-carved flowers, vines, and leaves. In fact, this row of four white marble stones above (members of same family, I believe) had distinctly different flowers, leaves, and vines carved on them!

The “new” cemetery’s most striking detail, I thought, was the brick-columned entrance way, with rusting iron ornamental lamps atop the columns. Flags from a previous Memorial Day lay inside the gate, near a rusty old water faucet.

St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church Cemetery

Directly across Church Street from the “new” Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery we found St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church Cemetery. Originally I thought it might be yet another extension of Trinity, until I noticed the congregation on nearby Broad Street letting out, with the Catholic priest greeting those holier than I, those who chose to worship mass on Sunday.

Reverend Antonio Cassese's grave marker, St. Joseph’s Church Cemetery

In the mid-nineteenth century, Catholics found it difficult to buy ground for a cemetery here in Woolwich Township due to anti-Catholic animosity that reached its peak in America at this time. In the midst of this persecution, the cemetery was established in 1857, and St. Joseph’s Church was built in 1860. It’s first resident priest, the Reverend Antonio Cassese, is buried under the stone memorial you see in the photo directly above. Born in Naples, Italy, he served the parish from 1872 to his death in 1886.

Passion Flower engraved in granite

The floral motifs continued in this cemetery, with several granite examples of the passion flower. My friend Bob indicated that this symbol is quite prevalent on monuments in Warriston Cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland. I had to look up it's funerary, mourning art, or religious significance, as I was unfamiliar with this flower. Here's what The Cemetery Club.com's website says:

“Passion flower - The elements of the passion of Christ: the lacy crown—the crown of thorns; the five stamens—the five wounds; the 10 petals—the 10 faithful Apostles."

Hmm. “Ten” faithful apostles? I thought it was eleven (twelve minus Judas)? Oh well, you learn something every day. After our cemetery tours, Bob and I adjourned to a local diner for a late lunch. Jersey diners are typically worth the trip. Visually, I include them in the garish roadside attractions for which New Jersey is well known. The food on the other hand, can be hit or miss. After ordering the breakfast burrito at this place I realized that I too, could easily prepare a breakfast burrito. What they served was pretty much what I would have made with basic ingredients found in the fridge – sausage links, onions, and store-bought salsa. About as basic and plain as you would expect from the Swiss and Finns, I suppose. But hey, at least they didn't use swiss cheese in the burrito!

References and Further Reading:

http://www.interment.net/data/us/nj/gloucester/trinity_episc/trinity.htm

http://colonialswedes.net/Churches/TriEpi.html

http://www.historicswedesboro.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Cemetery_Walking_Tour.pdf

Instagram your Smart Phone Cemetery Photographs!

I’d like to think of this as my Contractual Obligation blog. I have tried to publish four Cemetery Traveler blog posts every month since embarking upon this escapade in 2010. It’s sort of a personal contract I’ve made. Rarely have I not met this goal. However, January 2016 has been a trying month for various reasons. As of January 30^th, I had only published two. I cranked one out yesterday, “Cemetery Road Trip to North Jersey.“

So here it is January 31, 2016, and as my father used to say, “I’ve got a million things to do!” I temper such notions with something my daughter Olivia asked me when she was five years old: “Daddy, why are grownups so busy?” After thinking about that for a bit, I answered, “I guess it’s because they choose to be.” (As an example, I trudged half a mile in a blizzard last weekend to make the photo at right. Did I have to? No. Need to? No. Was it worth it? That's debatable!) So, tucked in with my millions of other things I need/want to be doing, I have written what amounts to my Contractual Obligation blog, my fourth blog of January 2016, presented here for your enjoyment.

New Photographic Tools
As I look out from my eyrie on all the cemeteries that need to be photographed, I find myself with a new tool – an Apple iPhone6. Not only that, but a friend turned me on to the “645 Pro” App ($3.99, and only available for Apple products, sorry), which gives you way more control over the image you capture than the iPhone’s own camera. Resolution is good with the iPhone 6 - you end up with 3MB images - and there are some basic in-phone editing controls. I’d actually made hundreds of photographs (if indeed these electronic images can be referred to as such) with the iPhone during the first months I owned it. However, it only recently occurred to me to use it to make photos in the cemeteries I visit.

 

#BessieSmith

Why bother, if I have real cameras at my disposal? Well, one word: “Instagram.” During the opening reception for a solo photography exhibition I had in the fall of 2015, the owner of the establishment showed me the Instagram images she blasted out to the universe to promote my show. She talked me into getting the App and setting up an account. I was told that it can be used to great advantage as a tool with which to promote your art.

#abandonedcrematorium

So I’ve been, uh, Instagramming (if that is, in fact, an actual word) new images from cemeteries I’ve recently visited. They’re all “hash tagged” (“#graveyard,” for example) so people can find them if they look for images tagged with that word. You see, Instagram, as well as the Internet in general, is text-based – it can’t tell what the content of your photo or pdf is – you have to tag the file with text. Otherwise, no one will find it with a word search. In the course of the past month since I’ve been on Instagram, I have amassed a number of “followers,” that is, people who will see my images pop up automatically on their smart phones the moment I post them.

#brownstoneangel

The photographs you see sprinkled throughout this article were made by me and my iPhone during the (current, as I write this) winter of 2015-16. You can only upload images to Instagram that you’ve made with your smart phone, by the way (you can also add a few lines of text, to describe the image, point folks to your website, etc.). It is mainly an image-centric method of communication, not text-based like Twitter. There’s no easy way to upload images from your computer to Instagram. You either have to have made the image with your smart phone (you upload it to Instagram directly from the phone), or you need some way (as with Apple’s iTunes) to transfer your image files from your computer to your smart phone.

So is all this gear and software going to make you another Edward Weston? No. These are tools. You need heart, soul, and talent to make successful photographs. Gear is fun and can open up new possibilities for you, but it won't make you a better photographer. If I sound tech-savvy, I’m really not. With anything ranging from Adobe’s Photoshop to Apple’s iPhone, I learn just enough to make the tools do what I need/want them to do! I always fall back on the basic photgraphic principles I've outlined in my book (shown below), entitled, Digital Photography for the Impatient!

Click to purchase from Amazon.com

So, here it is, 9:34 pm on January 31, 2016. Will I make my deadline and post this before midnight? Well, Super Bowl is not ‘til next week and hockey is in the All-Star break, so it looks good. All I need to do is transfer some of my cemetery images from my iPhone to my computer so I can size them and drop the resolution. Then I can pop them into the text here for your ultimate enjoyment!

A Reason to Photograph Things

I’ve just become energized. Energized to be a better photographer. I just met a friend of mine in the supermarket who showed me the iPhone images he made on a recent trip to Guatemala. Basically, they were black and white photos of people during a religious parade (kind of like the Catholic parade of saints held in many Italian-American parishes). Holy shit, I have not seen photographs that riveting in years.

Since I do not have any of my friend's images to use for illustrative purposes, I am sprinkling my own images here from the 2009 Catholic community street Procession of Saints in Philadelphia's Italian Market. The procession is a springtime fundraiser, patterned after the Italian May Day events. People carry or wheel platforms bearing statues of saints through the streets, while onlookers stick dollar bills to the statues' clothing or ribbons. (Also, this gives me a reason to publish these images!)

So back to my friend Eric Mencher’s photography. When he showed me examples on his iPhone, I could not help but compare them to photographs I saw in a “fine art photography” (whatever that means) gallery in New Jersey earlier that same day. There were maybe one or two images in the gallery show that were interesting, but compared to Eric's, they were nothing. (For the record, they were black and white staged and still life photographs, rather than candid street photography like Eric's.)

Just a spring clean for the May Queen

Eric is a veteran newspaper photographer and has worked with all kinds of expensive gear throughout the years, both film and digital. He says he loves the iPhone as a camera because he can shoot spur of the moment, just like when he started out years ago with a Leica rangefinder around his neck. He doesn’t need super high resolution and he likes the lo-fi look that cell phone cameras produce.

Which is not to say that cell phone cameras automatically produce art. Eric is an artist with a unique vision which the iPhone allows him to realize. I may go purchase an iPhone just because of his energizing, emphatic description of this tool that allows him to be so creative. However, I’m sure that I’ll never be able to make such photographs. I could buy an iPhone and visit Guatemala, but still never create images as good as his.

I did invite him to lecture to the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, because I think all photographers become energized when they hear other photographers discuss their creative endeavors. It makes no sense, of course, to run out and try to duplicate someone’s work, but seeing what other creative people can do may energize you in your own work.

If you're a photographer, it helps to have friends who are photographically inclined, supportive, and encouraging. I appreciated Eric's comment as we parted that he has a great deal of respect for photographers who tackle long-term projects such I have with cemetery photography. But then I began to think about it - is my cemetery subject matter just a “project?” Should I be looking to end it and find some other subject matter?

“If you have some reason for doing something  that’s very strong and you start working at it, you must look around every once in a while and find out if the original motives are still right.” At least that’s how scientist Richard Feynman felt about continuing his work in nuclear physics, work that in 1945 helped produce the atomic bomb (ref). Such self-examination as he describes is more easily said than done. I still don't quite understand my draw to cemetery photography, even after doing it for fifteen years. Maybe its just a draw to cemeteries in general, or simply death itself. I don't understand the reason yet, so I guess I'll keep the project going at least until I do. After that, I can re-examine my motives. In the meantime, I’ll just get that iPhone and see what happens ….

Further exploration:
Eric Mencher's website with some examples of his fine photography
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, by Richard  P. Feynman (Amazon.com)
Italian May Day events