Friday, May 18, 2012

Cemetery Tales - The Ones I Leave Behind

The best part about photographing cemeteries?   The history. 
     I love seeing the names, dates, family groupings, headstone designs through the ages, other people paying their respects to loved ones.

The worst part about it?  Passing by without taking a photo. 
     Sometimes the stone is just too worn out to read anything.  I hate not taking a photo.  I really really hate it. I feel like I'm letting the person down.  Like they weren't worth the effort.  Sometimes I take a photo anyway because I just hate all that guilt from NOT taking it.  But I don't really think anyone is going to be able to decipher it.  And usually they are half buried and I just don't have the energy to dig it out.  Then I feel like I'm being lazy.

Anyway, I passed by many of these kinds of headstones today.  Each time I would whisper a "sorry" and move on to the next.  What do you think?  Should I take them or not?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why not? Go ahead and take them. It doesn't hurt anything and if it helps ease your guilt then it's a win win....

Anonymous said...

I'd say go ahead and take them. Perhaps someone with a special need to know will be able to gain some spiritual insight into what was originally written there. :) Kent

Anonymous said...

Take the pictures, then when you get alittle time look at them and try to imangine who they might be, I know from some researching I've done that alot of times when a small child or baby died they only put a stone or nondiscriptive stone that only the family new who was buried there. I'd like to see some of them.Lorna