Written Inc's theme this week is "the Blues." Now just last December we did the color blue as a theme, so I have to stay away from that. And I had this great shot of 2 of my academic team boys looking depressed when a game wasn't going well, but I can only post kids' photos on the school blog now, so that's out.
So, cemeteries.
Yup, that's what I came up with: cemeteries.
I actually have lots of European cemetery photos taken with a film camera, but not so many with digital, so here's one great got-the-blues/death-is-sobering snap of a lonely cemetery in Orphir in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland. The light's nice on this one, I think.
And, in contrast to this green cemetery on an island (the sea is right over the hill), here's a dry, dusty shot taken on an autumn day so hazy you can't even see the mountains across the valley.
The sandstone headstones here are unmarked because very little is known about the people they represent. (The small ones are children; the larger ones are adults.) In the 1980s, construction workers in downtown Salt Lake City found a small burial plot that turned out to belong to some of the earliest white settlers in the valley. Long before DNA testing was available, it was impossible to verify more than a couple of the identities. Originally, the plan was to put the bodies in the city cemetery, but then someone suggested that they be placed up the mountainside from Old Deseret Village, a living history museum at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, which was the entrance point to the valley before roads and trains came through. So, the graves overlook the valley their inhabitants once traveled over a thousand miles to find. It's a bittersweet tale, just right for the blues, I think.
(Remember to click on the photos to see them full size.)
Yes, I agree! The light in the first shot is lovely, and your words for the second one certainly transmit that blue feeling.
ReplyDeleteWell done for this theme!
great interpretation of the theme
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteI love how you've chosen to reflect it this time. I was hoping it wouldn't be about the color, and you knocked it out of the park!
ReplyDeleteFunny, I often go on these walk-through-the-cemetery jags. I'm not entirely sure why, as the process can often darken an already blue mood. But I feel very drawn to these places, and I suspect it'll be a recurring thing for me for quite some time. Almost as if there's a story that I'm destined to tell.
Weird, I know. But if it leads to great photography and writing, it can't be all that bad. Thank you for the inspiration to return!
The gravestones reach out into the blue or do the blues drive you to the grave?
ReplyDelete