My current practice focuses primarily on newborn and infant portraiture. I have volunteered my time to a charity called "Remember My Baby" where I give my time to provide families who have had to experience infant loss with family portraits. This service is invaluable to these families and I aim to advertise my time as a free service to theses families to make these sessions more accessible in the future.
As part of the MA, I have been photographing graveyards for several months and hoped to visit at three times throughout the day, I arrived at 4.30 am to find the place locked up, no way to gain entry except over the wall. I sprained my ankle and had to revisit once gates were opened. None the less I was unable to create my tryptic of sunrise, midday, and sunset however I did manage to photograph not only from a different angle but after the gardeners had been. They try so hard to maintain the site but it's rather big and quite a struggle!
Once again on Friday, I found myself walking through the holy souls' roman catholic cemetery. I decided that I would use this as my project for this week's discussion on rephotography. As soon as we entered the gates I could see that the gardeners had been in. The ivy that cloaked the angels had been pulled away revealing the bare stone. The angels are symbolic messengers between God and man. This place looked and felt so differently over the past few weeks especially during springtime. With lockdown in place, we stood there in silence just wandering around and observing the smallest details, little birds jumping across from one headstone to the other, the sound of silence.
I got back home and felt intrigued by an article I had read in the Mail online. “The photographer with a morbid fascination with graveyards” I sit and wonder why it’s seen as a morbid fascination yet any other landscape would be seen in such a different light.
Who knows? Maybe I am morbid?.
