Beyond Fiction

You know, I’m not a professional photographer and I don’t try to claim to be a knowledgeable person when it comes to photographing tombstones. I would like to take the time to share with you a method that I have been using lately and see if anyone can help me to improve. I promise I am not going to be upset if anyone responds to this blog and chastises me. I love to learn new things and sometimes chastisement is the best way to learn.

So, I’ve never went all out but I have invested in a few things tonight that might help me to have a little better luck tomorrow. I plan on going to an old cemetery that is on private land. I’ve talked to the owner and they said they will be there Saturday and will show me where the cemetery is. Being as it is a small cemetery (from what I have heard) and because it is on private land, I plan on taking as many pictures as I can. I’d love to be able to photograph all the stones there. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Here is what I have bought to take with me tomorrow. A friend suggested that I use some Simple Green on the old, blackened tombstones. She said that she has photographed many graves this way and it didn’t hurt the stone. I just have to make sure I have some water available to rinse it off afterwards. I think I will give it a shot and hopefully everything will be alright. I have also purchased some shop rags to help clean off the stones, some garden shears to trim the grass around the stone, a scrub brush to help in cleaning, and a hand broom to sweep it off. I have already adopted the habit of bringing an umbrella with me to help shade the stone from the sun.

Can anyone think of anything else I should bring? Is there something I shouldn’t bring? I’m still fairly new to the idea of making sure the tombstone picture is as good as it can be. I have had to go and redo a lot of my earlier photographs because they didn’t really show me what I needed to see.

I’ll update you all tomorrow on how the trip went. I hope nothing goes wrong. The weather is calling for a slight chance of rain so I hope that will hold off.

Wish me luck!