Angelic

15 Jul 2006

I'm old enough that graveyards (during the day at least) are more interesting for the remnants of a life left behind by the living-loved than scary for the cold decaying corpse that lies beneath. But I'm also young enough that they're too distant to worry about. Something I recognised when I intentionally visited one on my recent weekend drive.

Some of the headstones were the usual simple standard, in various states of survival. Others were expansive ground level tombs I couldn't understand the expense of. And still others crawled skyward (heaven-ward?) in a sentiment I saw as merely egotistical, others excessively religious, or ethnically gaudy. Such devout religious sentiment I usually avoid but here I had to actively seek it out, because I wanted to try my hand at a shot I'd seen on someone else's photoblog. An image not unlike this shot. - The fine line between inspiration and plagiarism not lost on me.

From a wide selection (in the 10's if not 100's of thousands) of memorials before me, I had to walk and at times drive to find headstones that claimed as their guardians the messengers of their lord, because it was these ones I wanted to catch the sun-shone shadow of against the suitably contrasting blue sky of the day.

But when it came time to process my shots for posting, I struggled with the fact that the necessary depth of shadow was in-fact void of detail. So for a few days now I've debated on posting this shot. Do I? Don't I? Is it an acceptable shot? Or overly manipulated? Simplistic?

But in the spirit of growing photographically, of putting myself in unusual territory, I'm going to put this out in the public domain and see if in a few days weeks or months, whether I and others appreciate it. - For anyone who bothers to get this far in my diatribe... let me know.

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