In 1749 a common burial ground was established in downtown Halifax on what is now the corner of Spring Garden Road and Barrington Street. Fast forward 261 years and we now refer to the site as the Old Burying Grounds.
The grounds have been of interest to me since I moved to Halifax. There is something special about standing in the middle of a place surrounded by so much history. As many as 12,000 settlers and soliders may be buried there though only 1,000 or so headstones remain (if they were ever placed at all). It overwhelms me to think of all the collected hopes and dreams of those buried there, their thoughts and conversations, their families, the people they loved. Makes me feel like a pretty small cog in a very large engine.
It’s interesting that the quality of light I would normally associate with good photography doesn’t always work well when photographing in this or any graveyard. The image above was made pretty close to high noon with a harsh sun, heavy shadows, and colorless light. But in the graveyard the light is given color by being filtered through the multitude of trees on the grounds, and the heavy shadows actually help in this case to give depth and texture to the headstones and monuments that in some cases are weathered to almost nothing. In fact, carved lettering depends on this for it’s very readability.
I shot this headstone (monument) twenty different ways and I think it’s interesting the best of those were the ones that captured the least amount of details about the owner. Making it more generic makes it more relatable perhaps. Everyone has their own personal beliefs about death and the ceremonies and rituals the surround them but for me I’d be very happy to have someone 250 years into the future wandering around my headstone, my body long since fertilizer, pondering my hopes, dreams, conversations and loves.
More info on Old Burial Ground can be found here and here. If you haven’t been, take an afternoon and go. It’s worth it!