Wildlife Photography in the Cemetery

I’ve never thought of myself as much of a "wildlife" photographer, since I’m more likely to make photographs like the one below than the one you see of these deer above. However, I did in fact make both photographs. The thing I don’t like about wildlife photography is the hunt. Sure, you can photograph animals in a zoo or a game preserve, but that’s a lot different than shooting in the wild. Since I have the attention span of a gnat and the patience of a Great White, my wildlife photos have all been sheer luck. Well, the sightings themselves sheer luck – the capturing of animals in a photograph takes a bit of skill.
 

So where do I shoot, er, that is, photograph wildlife? Where to find wild animals? In cemeteries! This is more convenient for me than going to the mountains since I live in a large city (Philadelphia) and there are scores of cemeteries in the area. While I’ve seen my share of wildlife in maintained, crisply clean cemeteries (like this fox shown below at Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, PA), it’s the overgrown graveyards (and the ones with patches of woods) that offer more photographic opportunities. Why? Simply because they offer more cover to animals such as deer, fox, hawks, etc. The animals live there - the cemetery is their habitat.

Fox on the run!

Now, my hero of cemetery wildlife photography is my friend Frank Rausch, who works (and yes, lives in!) Historic Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Frank is an accomplished photographer and makes good use of the opportunities at hand. In his off hours, he has been able to make some magnificent photographs, not only of the monuments and headstones, but of the animals that live around (and sometimes under) them! I like to tell people that I’m lucky to catch a blurry squirrel or a little bird on a headstone, but Frank goes for big game. My images pale in comparison!

Hawk, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia (photo by Frank Rausch)

I’ve even gone so far as to jest with people by saying that Frank carries a stuffed hawk around in the back of his truck so he can perch it in the most unusual place just so he can photograph it! Sadly, that is untrue -  Frank is just a better wildlife photographer than I am. The photos directly above and below are examples of his fine work. (Foxes, you'll notice, don't run away from Frank like they do from me!)

Baby red fox, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia (Photo by Frank Rausch)

So I decided to ask Frank for advice. But before I even received his reply, I wanted to point out a few things I’ve learned on my own over the years. It should be interesting to see what I may have missed! You can compare the opinions (and the quality of the images) of both an amateur (me) and an accomplished (Frank Rausch) wildlife photographer.

Hawk in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia/Yeadon, PA

Ed Snyder’s Wildlife Photography Tips:

1. Go where the creatures are.
2. Have your camera (s) ready at all times.
3. Scan your surroundings for critters while you’re photographing that tombstone.
4. Consider video (if you're on Facebook, you can link to this video I made) to supplement your stills.
5. Practice focusing through trees (if there are trees or bushware between you and your furry subject, this will wreak havoc with your autofocus system!)
6. Be as familiar as possible with the habits of certain animals (e.g. foxes live in burrows, deer do not, that sort of thing).

Okay, that second one is easy to say, have your camera ready, but it implies that you also know how to use it properly and you know how to adjust for poor lighting conditions, rapid movement, and focusing challenges. Wild animals will present you with all these, and sometimes all at the same time! Take a look at the photo above of the hawk in flight. I saw this guy fly into a tree and made a few photos of him sitting on a branch. As he became fidgety, I figured he would take off - but in what direction? I caught him as he left his perch, but this was shear luck. A good habit to develop in such a situation is to not zoom in too closely on your subject! Shoot a bit more of the scene than you want in order to give the animal some space in your image frame. If you're lucky enough the catch the action, you can always crop the image later (like I did with the hawk).

Ten-point buck in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia

Here's an example of the last item in my list - be familiar with the habits of certain animals. I was recently at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia, a formerly abandoned cemetery whose hundreds of acres are still about seventy-five percent either wooded or overgrown. My friend Bob Reinhardt and I were pushing our way through the waist-high dried weeds (this was December) in an area of the cemetery we had not explored recently. We were walking uphill along a deer run, and there were many fresh tracks and deer droppings all over. While Bob was photographing an inscription on a headstone in the weeds in front of me, I looked up past him and saw a ten-point buck standing about twenty feet away staring at us, probably wondering just what the heck we were doing in his garden! I whispered to Bob to slowly stand up and look at the deer ahead of him. I slowly raised my camera and grabbed a few shots (one you see directly above) before if slowly disappeared into the thicket.

A couple weeks later, when I was by myself at Mount Moriah photographing during a light snowfall, an enormous doe jumped across the road in front of me. I never saw her coming, so I totally missed the photo. This will happen to you. A lot. What plays on your mind when you’re in a cemetery is that you expect everything to be stock-still. I could say that cemeteries are good places to do still-life photography but that would be a cheap shot!

Turkey vulture on statue (photo by Frank Rausch)

Now here's a wonderful image made by Frank Rausch where, I'm guessing, he exhibited a great deal of patience. There are stories behind every photograph, and Frank has them. He no doubt lied in wait for this turkey vulture to spread its wings for this majestic pose! I know for a fact that Frank does not digitally alter his images, so none of his work is manipulated in that fashion. He never even crops! So, without further ado, let's see what tips he has to offer. 

Frank Rausch’s Wildlife Photography Tips:

1. Stay observant. View your surroundings for any natural habitat.
2. Stop every so often. Look and listen.
3. Carry at least one Tele-zoom, preferably with at least 200-300mm focal length or longer because your shots might be from a distance.
4. Carry a tripod for stability if necessary and for low light shots.
5. Polarizer filters are helpful for sun glare.
6. If you should spot an animal going into a den make note of the location and if possible return at different times of the day for activity.
7. Research your favorite animals to photograph. Familiarize yourself with their breeding, living and possible migratory habits so you can be at the right place at the right time.
8. When focusing remember the eyes tell the story.
9. A wide aperture will shorten your depth of field and accentuate your subject.
10. Be patient. I've waited near a fox den for hours to get the shot I wanted.
11. Manual focus may sometimes be necessary if obstructions like branches are between you and your subject.

Once you get that first GREAT shot you'll be hooked forever. HAVE FUN!!

Cemetery Hawk  (photo by Frank Rausch)

Frank’s Tip Number 8 tip is wonderful -“When focusing remember the eyes tell the story!” Just look at the eyes in his animal photographs! I’m aware of the advantages of doing this when photographing people - to always have the eyes in focus, but I never thought about applying this to our furry friends. One of the things Frank does not mention is that his photography gear is much more sophisticated than mine (but not extravagant). He uses Nikon D90 and D800 bodies, with a Nikkor 70-300mm zoom, 18-105mm zoom, and a Tamron 200-500mm zoom.  

My photo gear is not that sophisticated, but I still manage to get decent wildlife photos now and again. (The ones in this article not attributed to Frank Rausch are mine.) I shoot with a Canon G11 (a “DPS,” Digital Point and Shoot camera, as I call them in my book, Digital Photography for the Impatient) and a Canon Rebel XTs with a Canon 28-135mm F3.5 zoom. Regardless of the gear you use, wildlife is out there to be photographed! Try it and have fun!

See more of Frank Rausch's images on his website:

Photographic Art By Frank Rausch

Nisky Hill Cemetery, Bethlehem, PA

On a bitterly cold and windy day in January, I met up with some friends to tour and make photographs in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s Nisky Hill Cemetery. Great art comes from great pain. Fifteen degrees with a wind chill right off the Lehigh River that can numb gloved fingers in fifteen minutes. Some snow and ice remained on the ground from a prior time, much as the monstrous and rusting hulks of the Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces sat dormant across the river. These “steel stacks” can easily be seen through the leafless trees at the edge of the cemetery. Looking toward them makes you assume that many of the graves here must have belonged to steel workers.

 

Dormant blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel lurk across the Lehigh River

Or not. This was more likely an elite cemetery, with the actual immigrant steel workers buried in rude churchyard cemeteries like St. Michael's on the south (opposite) side of the river. Nisky Hill Cemetery appears to be in an affluent neighborhood of Bethlehem (check out this Christmas house across the street).

From what little I’ve been able to ascertain, Nisky Hill Cemetery was founded in 1864 as a Moravian burial ground. The original “Union Cemetery” (having nothing to do with the Grand Army of the Republic) at the eastern end of this large rectangular property, appears to have been annexed to Nisky Hill at some point in time.  The old gates along the front of the cemetery (East Church Street) offer the words “UNION CEMETERY” spelled out on them in wrought iron. I will assume Bethlehem Union Cemetery predates Nisky Hill.

Office at main entrance, Nisky Hill Cemetery

 The main entrance here is a bit odd. The entire cemetery is essentially build into the river bank, and slopes down toward it. Nisky Hill Cemetery is owned by the Bethlehem Area Moravians, Inc., a privately-held corporation which, it seems, has been in the local cemetery business since 1823 (ref.). Why, I’m not sure. I could fill a book with what I don’t know about the Moravians, so I’ll save that research for another time. Suffice it to say that “Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was founded in 1741 by a group of Moravians, members of a church that traces its heritage to pre-Reformation fifteenth-century central Europe”(ref.).

Interesting example of a "pre-need" cemetery monument

While it was a bit uncomfortable being out in the elements on this bright chilly winter’s day, it was actually kind of a cake walk. After some recent visits to abandoned cemeteries where I had to climb over fences and fall out of trees, this visit to Nisky Hill was so easy it seemed like I was getting away with something! While there was snow on the ground, the roads were plowed – in fact, the gates were wide open and we drove right in! Sometimes you take such conveniences for granted. There are in fact many cemeteries I’ve visited in winter where they don’t even plow the snow off the roads or even unlock the gate! Nisky Hill Cemetery is well-maintained and safe. I would guess that the caretaker lives on site in the old office building (there was a swing set behind it).

As we made our way methodically from one mausoleum to the next, I kept thinking about the heating packets for my gloves that I left in the trunk of my car. Oh well, cold fingers are better than the bloody ones ripped up by barbed wire a few weeks ago as a result of my last cemetery exploration! Today, we had a warm running vehicle to which we could adjourn about every fifteen minutes. Pampered.

Zinc ("White Bronze") memorial

As photographers, my friends and I ran off in our separate directions, pursuing our personal visions. Sometimes these interact, sometimes they are at odds with each other. While it can be interesting to see how different people photograph the same scene (like we did with the Civil War cannon above), I rather enjoy totally missing some awesome detail that a friend points out! In the case at Nisky Hill, I would have totally missed a few things, wrapped up in my own world of zinc monuments and snow. My friend Jonathan pointed out the disembodied heads (photos above) and the color photographic mausoleum glass window shown below.

The what? A photographic image about two by three feet, in color, of children in a boat, playing near a small waterfall. Trees crowd the sunny sky, while a hole from a bullet or stone mars the idyllic scene. What exactly is this? It is not stained glass nor painted glass, done in the usual fashion. A photograph printed on glass, then hand-painted? A type of 1860s lantern slide or an early 1900s autochrome? This is a positive image, like a color slide transparency. I am totally curious about this, so if anyone can offer a clue as to how this was done, please comment!

Author at William H. Thomas monument

Perhaps the most unusual monument in the entire cemetery was the one at the main entrance. Before we met up at Nisky Hill, my friends texted me about their impending arrival. This was about fifteen minutes after I arrived. I texted them back, “Meet you at the giant phallus.” I took a selfie before they got there, to help gauge the size - I am six foot two inches tall. Imagine. What would possess someone to install such a thing on one’s grave is beyond me, but apparently William H. Thomas was possessed by exactly that prior to his death in 1928. Maybe he wanted his monument to be higher than the steel stacks across the river? This sixteen-foot high tan (I swear) granite testament to the male ego stands out like a witty analogy amidst the much smaller, normal-sized grave markers that surround it. 

According to Funeralwise.com, “Moravians focus on the simplicity of burial grounds. They believe in uniform, plain grave markers and inscriptions to emphasize the equality of all human beings.” Oddly, the phallus is right next to the office building so no one can ever miss it. "Equality" aside, whoever all there people were, the residents of Nisky Hill and Union Cemetery in Bethlehem, their choice of how to be remembered was personal. These markers and monuments represent their lives, their community, their collective soul. It is a varied collection.

 

Older Moravian grave markers

Although Nisky Hill was originally restricted to Moravian burials, at some point this changed. Older Moravian cemeteries have smallish, low to the ground grave markers, almost like a memorial park or a Quaker burial ground with no high tombstones or monuments. There are a number of Moravian stones in this cemetery, made of white marble – perhaps twenty inches long, fourteen inches wide, and four inches high. However, Nisky Hill/Union Cemetery evolved for the most part into a classic American Victorian-era cemetery, replete with angels, zinc monuments, mausolea, and other decorative details from that era of mourning art.

The Grave of C.F. Martin, Guitar Maker ... Located!

 
This blog is part two of a minor odyssey I began in the summer of 2013 (click link at end of article for part one, The Grave of Guitar Maker C.F. Martin ... Almost). Back then I attempted to find the grave of C.F. Martin (Christian Frederick Martin, Sr.), patriarch of the Martin Guitar Company in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. I remember at the time assuming he was buried with his wife, Lucia Otilia Martin (formerly Kühle), at Moravian Cemetery in Nazareth. At the time, there was no entry (or gravestone photo) for him on the website Findagrave.com. There was, however, an entry for Lucia.

After a highly enjoyable tour of the Martin guitar factory in the summer of 2013, I visited Moravian Cemetery – just a couple miles from the factory. Not having a map to Lucia’s grave marker (just the photo from Findagrave.com), and with all the grave stones looking alike, I still managed to find her grave within about ten minutes! However, C.F. was not buried with her or next to her. I conjectured that he may have been in an unmarked grave or possibly shipped back to Bavaria for burial in a family plot. While I was at Moravian Cemetery, I failed to notice that all the markers surrounding Lucia’s stone marked female graves.

What is the Moravian Church? Wikipedia tells us: 

"The Moravian Church … is the oldest Protestant denomination emerged from the Bohemian Reformation. This church's nickname comes from the original exiles who came to Saxony in 1722 from Moravia to escape persecution, but its religious heritage began in 1457 in Kunvald, Bohemia, today part of the Czech Republic, an autonomous kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. The Moravian Church places a high premium on Christian unity, personal piety, missions, and music"

Music, hmmmm? A few months later, I emailed Chris Martin, current C.E.O. and fourth generation owner of Martin Guitars, about the whereabouts of his Great-great-great grandfather. A Customer Service person, Mr. Jason Ahner answered me back: C.F. Martin, Sr. is buried on the men’s side of the cemetery! This never occurred to me at the time of my first visit.

Map of Moravian Cemetery, Nazareth, PA

Apparently, this is how the Moravians buried their loved ones – women segregated from men. Mr. Ahner was kind enough to even send me a hand-drawn map showing the plot location of C.F. Martin, Sr. as well as subsequent Martin family C.E.O.s at the Nazareth Moravian Cemetery. It took me over a year to make the second trip, which I finally made in December 2014 for closure.

Snow-covered Moravian grave markers

My first attempt at the planned second trip was aborted when it snowed the previous night. Older Moravian cemeteries have smallish, low to the ground, grave markers, almost like a memorial park or a Quaker burial ground with no high tombstones or monuments. If you’ve ever been to a Quaker cemetery, you’re familiar with the small, rectangular stones. The Moravian stones in this Nazareth graveyard are larger, however, and are made of white marble – perhaps twenty inches long, fourteen inches wide, and four inches high. As you see in the photo above, such stones, once snowed over, have their inscriptions covered. 

According to Funeralwise.com, “Moravians focus on the simplicity of burial grounds. They believe in uniform, plain grave markers and inscriptions to emphasize the equality of all human beings.”  

A few weeks later, I had another opportunity to make the trip. The map came in very handy and I found the grave in question within ten minutes – even though the stones all looked alike. C.F. Martin, Sr.’s stone had recently been brought to level and shored up a bit. Another thing that made his grave marker easy to find was the photo of it that I found in a Martin Guitar promotional magazine, The Sounding Board (Vol. 34, January 2013), that I picked up after the tour when I was at the factory. 

C.F. Martin, Sr. and grave marker

In a gatefold section of the magazine was a pictorial history of the founding of Martin Guitars. Beneath an artist’s illustration of the patriarch was an illustration of his headstone. 

The older portion of this cemetery, closer to West Center Street (see map), is organized first by gender, men closer to the cemetery entrance, women higher up the hill. Interment.net offers an explanation of these segregated burial practices in describing the Schoeneck Moravian Cemetery, which is on West Beil Avenue closer to the Martin Factory: “…within each gender, by date of death and marital status, married men together, single women together, children, etc., with families not buried together. Most of the graves are very late 18th through very early 20th century. A number of the stones are in German, or a German-English mix, but most are in English."

The grave marker of Lucia Otilia Martin, the matriarch of Martin Guitars, is about twenty feet away from Christian Frederick’s. The mens’ section is separated from the women’s section of the cemetery by a strip of grass maybe eight feet wide. Here’s a photo (at right) of her grave marker with C.F.’s marker downhill in the background (my blue camera bag is next to it in the white circle).


After finding C.F. Martin’s grave, I thought I might head over to the factory to thank Mr. Ahner for his help. I pulled up in front of the building and got out. A lovely Christmas tree stood above the main entrance. As I was making a photograph of this, a gentleman in a red coat came up the walk from the parking area. As a photographer, you sometimes want a human in your photo to give a sense of scale to the composition. His red coat would add a splash of color to the scene as well.

Chris Martin, CEO Martin and Co. (ref.)

As I snapped the photo, the gentleman turned around and said, “Did I photo-bomb your picture?”  I recognized him from publicity photos. I asked, “Are you Chris?” (Meaning, Christian Frederick Martin, IV, Chairman of the Board and C.E.O. of Martin Guitars) He said “I am.” I was a bit taken aback and blathered on about why I was there and he said, “C’mon in.” Very nice guy. After some discussion with the receptionist about who I was there to see, Mr. Ahner came into the lobby and we chatted a bit. He said they were considering adding a tour of Moravian Cemetery for vising dignitaries and I offered to add the location of Lucia’s grave site to his map. After we said our goodbyes, I played a few of the guitars in the lobby and toured the museum.

As an aside, I did buy my first Martin guitar last year after taking the tour of the factory. Once you go through the factory and see how these guitars are made, you realize that the (relatively) high cost of these instruments is totally justified. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Martin Guitar Company for its hospitality and welcoming attitude toward my rather offbeat inquiries!

Reference and Further Reading:

Martin and Co. website 
 Part one of this article: The Grave of Guitar Maker C.F. Martin ... Almost

The Three Brother’s Monument – Harmony in life, unity in death

My first blog of the New Year (2015) was guest-written by my good friend, Sam Ricks. Sam is the Graves Registrar for the Pennsylvania Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (Lt. General John C. Pemberton Camp #2060, Philadelphia, PA) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. (Philadelphia). The photos you see here are Sam's. His article immediately follows the last blog I posted on The Cemetery Traveler in 2014, about General George Meade, Commander of the Union forces at the Battle of Gettysburg. I now turn this interesting story over to Sam ...

In late October, I received a tip about two Confederate graves in Philadelphia from Donna Ozenne, of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Bakersfield, California chapter (herself a Philadelphia native).  The graves of the three Ingraham brothers, all born in Philadelphia County’s Byberry Township, were post-Civil War re-interments. All were nephews of Union Major General George Gordon Meade, Philadelphia’s most famous Civil War general. 

Two of the brothers, Frank and Edward, were Confederate soldiers killed in action on Southern battlefields.  The third brother, Thomas, died of yellow fever before the war in Tensas County, Louisiana.

At first glance, their monument [shown here] in the family plot at All Saints Episcopal Church Cemetery, 9601 Frankford Avenue [Philadelphia], appeared to be a cenotaph – a family memorial to brothers buried years before in Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana.  As a consequence, Philadelphia’s “Civil War history community” took no notice of this “Confederate” monument as the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, now entering its final year, was commemorated.  That is, until I found their burial card online.

Ingraham burial card

The Three Brothers Monument, featuring three dark, broken, Roman columns bound together by a rusted metal belt, a symbol of young lives cut short, is not a cenotaph, but an actual grave.  They are buried in the Ingraham plot, range 12, grave 2. 

Private Francis “Frank” Ingraham, of I Company, 21^st Regiment, Mississippi Infantry, CSA, born in 1829, was killed in action at the Battle of Marye’s Heights (Fredericksburg, VA), during the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863. His brother, Major Edward Ingraham, A Company, 1^st Regiment, Confederate States Regular Cavalry, CSA, born in 1830, died May 10, 1862 in Corinth, MS, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Farmington, TN.

Author Tom Huntington’s blog, Searching For Meade, recounts the story of the three brother’s post war burial at All Saints.  An “angry mob” threatened to disrupt their re-interment, but was prevented from doing so by a group of local Quakers who stood guard over their graves.

This All Saints episode undermines a long held belief of local historians: that the Meade family and others, had angrily protested the burial of another Philadelphia Confederate, Lt. General John C. Pemberton, at Laurel Hill Cemetery in 1881.  Obviously, the originator of this urban legend got the facts confused with the earlier attempt to thwart the burial of Meade’s Confederate nephews in Philadelphia.

There is something more profound at work here.  Most Civil War readers dismiss the “brother versus brother” story as quaint rhetoric, as rusted as the belt binding the three broken columns of this monument together. But it was reality for many families.  And the evidence can be found in Philadelphia’s cemeteries. The biggest fear of these soldiers was someday finding themselves on opposite sides of the same battlefield. 

Celebrating New Year's with a glass of Meade?

General George Meade

Okay, I have a confession to make. I have repeated a story for years, and I just found out that it is not true! I’d be the first to admit that I seldom let facts get in the way of telling a good story, but in all honesty, this tale was so good, I guess I just wanted to believe it! The story goes that each New Year’s Eve, a group of people calling themselves "The General Meade Society," has a midnight champagne toast at General George Meade’s grave site, which is located in Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery. General George Gordon Meade was of course the commander of the Union Army at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War; his birthday was December 31, 1815 (New Year’s Eve). He died in Philadelphia in 1872.

 Memorial Day (2014) gun salute by reenactors at Meade's grave site, Laurel Hill Cemetery

Turns out that the midnight champagne birthday toast at his grave site on New Year's Eve does not actually occur. I got the day right, but not the time! I was searching for details today, thinking that I might attend the toast after hearing about it for so many years. I checked Laurel Hill’s website and found this information:

GENERAL MEADE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION

The annual General Meade Birthday Celebration will mark the 199th anniversary of the birth of General George G. Meade, commander of the Union Army at the Battle of Gettysburg. A parade of Civil War re-enactors, civilians in period attire, special dignitaries, heritage groups and participants will advance to Meade’s final resting place and memorialize his services to his nation. A 21-gun salute and champagne toast will cap off the program at graveside, and will be followed by a reception in the Cemetery Gatehouse. A tour of historic Laurel Hill will be offered following the festivities (weather permitting). This year holds special significance as we continue to commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.

The event will take place on Wednesday, December 31 at 12:00pm, departing from Laurel Hill Cemetery’s Gatehouse entrance at 3822 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19132. Free parking is located in the lot across the street from the Gatehouse.

Free and open to the public; a $10 donation in support of Laurel Hill Cemetery’s work and preservation is suggested and would be much appreciated. Additional information can be found by calling (215) 228-8200.

Ge. George Meade's grave marker, Laurel Hill Cemetery

After reading this, I realized that I didn’t know if "Wednesday, December 31 at 12:00pm" meant midnight, or noon! I really was not sure. Bear in mind that I'm getting up in age - I just turned 56, which is, oddly, the age at which Meade died. Would they really have a 21-gun salute and a tour in the cemetery at midnight? So I called Laurel Hill Cemetery and was told that, no, this will not happen at midnight, but at noon. In fact, the event has always been held at noon! So, to all the people to whom I have repeated this "midnight toast" nonsense to over the years, I sincerely apologize. Happy New Year!

References and Further Reading:

Laurel Hill Cemetery website

The General Meade Society

Photo at top of article is from The General Meade Society website