Slowing down...

If you hadn’t noticed, I visited Norwich’s Rosary Cemetery yesterday for the first time. I am rather well accustomed to a good cemetery, having lived near the one on Earlham Road for a number of years. They are marvellous places to visit. Cemeteries – because I know, I just know that you are giving a withered, disappointed sort of look at the screen right this minute - are at once peaceful and teeming with life, they are sombre and wild, well-maintained and yet left to grow and flourish by themselves. You can never know what to expect in a cemetery. Photographically, they are absolutely wonderful places to visit. Photographing a cemetery is a far cry from photographing events, festivals and city life – the skills you need are almost exactly opposite.

Walking through a cemetery with a camera and a determination to come home with good photographs is a wonderful way to slow down your day. The longer and the slower you walk around, the more you notice small details, and the more interesting perspectives you find. The crucial thing, though, is that the slower you go, the more wildlife you find just in front of you – and if you’re nifty enough, you can really capture some terrific moments. Like this robin taking off:



The real challenge of photographing a cemetery, though, is in the thought process. There is a balance to be found between capturing the overgrown mess, and trying to make it look elegant (which, of course, it is). I didn’t grasp this idea at all when I first began photographing in Earlham Cemetery. If a grave looked messy, I would tend to walk right past it, in my naïve hurry to get a good shot from somewhere. Well, those good shots were right in front of me – if I’d learned to take the time to consider them. Slowing down around the Rosary Cemetery yesterday allowed me to appreciate the small details in these messy graves, encouraged me to take notice of their individual characters, and to use the mess to good effect.





The Rosary Cemetery will continue to be a place for me to slow down with my camera, and concentrate on capturing details; sometimes, capturing a moment just isn’t enough.

The rest of my Rosary Cemetery images can be found on my Flickr page - and you can expect to find plenty more in the coming weeks.