Cities of the Dead: New Orleans, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

Sunday, March 9, 2014

New Orleans, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

I think that Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans was the first time that I took graveyard photos. Colin and I were down there on vacation, and when we heard about the cemeteries, we instantly knew that we had to go to one of the locations and take some pictures.

Cemetery No. 1 isn't safe - people have been shot there, tourists have been robbed, and although it would be a great place to take pictures at night, probably not a good idea. There were a couple of armed guards wandering around in between the graves when we were there, and several people had warned us to be a little careful.

Regardless, it was just an amazing location. New Orleans has a well deserved reputation - that unique combination of Southern lifestyle, Creole influence, voodoo, the decadence of the French Quarter - and I found that Cemetery No. 1 had a sort of surreal vibe. I think that the pictures I took ended up having some of that feel, a kind of Twilight Zone strangeness.

- Sid

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Where art meets the landscape

Graveyards of all shapes and sizes have drawn me to them for many years. Often they are places of reflection, after all you're walking through a place where people have been put to rest (as they say) and they have a kind of morbid beauty manifested in the sculptures and stonework which abide there. They are often quiet places, removed from the busy haunts and paths of the living. Cemeteries are human spaces where stone marks past lives and yet that stone too, symbol of permanence, decays over time.

Colin