Key West Cemetery 2015 (part two)

I had the opportunity in April of this year to do a trip to Florida and the Keys with Sid. As part of that trip we visited the Key West Cemetery, the place where Sid had photographed the enigmatic stone of the bound woman which appears in this blog.

Pensive angel

We actually visited the cemetery twice while we were in the area. The first day that we did it was very hot (well, actually both days were hot but that's not the point of the story). Being from the northern climes we had liberally slathered ourselves with sun screen, SPF 100, to protect our pasty skins from the sun's rays. Unfortunately for me the lotion that I had put on my face combined with the sweat of my brow and the resultant mixture ran into my eyes and they started to burn. It certainly put a damper on my enthusiasm for photographing the site that day. I was very glad that we came back.

A shady nook.

It has been said that a cemetery is like a town in itself, in fact this blog is called 'Cities of the Dead' for much the same reason. There are built up areas, suburbs, mansions and hovels, all connected by a network of roads and paths. And the trees are an integral part of that landscape.

Again, being from Canada, we were used to different species of trees and so many of them appear quite strange and beautiful.

So this particular city of the dead has it's rich sections, it's poor sections, even a military section, as well as dedicated areas for different religious faiths. The tombs and headstones also incorporate many different styles which too reflect the culturally diverse nature of the islands more lively inhabitants. The cemetery is a rich mixture of styles.

U.S.S. Maine memorial and gravesite.

This area is devoted to some of the sailors who perished in the explosion of the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. One of the reasons that I put it here is that among all the American Flags that fill the plot, if you look, there is a single Union Jack flag at one of the stones.

Beaded angel.

I hesitate to use the expression 'carnival influence' because it might seem disrespectful but a few of the stones were draped or decorated with beads.

A rosary or such.

 And another example.

Ravages of time.

Because of the heat and the salt in the air the weathering of statuary created some interesting figures.

Melting angel.

Melting cherub.

As I was idly looking through the images that I had shot over the two days I saw something a that made me stop and take one of those hard looks at the image. I did a crop of the image (the original was a vertical shot and I cropped it horizontally) in order to put a bit more emphasis on it and added the shot to the blog at the end here. I have to admit that for some reason I got a bit of a creepy vibe.

The angel and the wasp nest.

Colin