Self Assignment

It took me a long time to figure out what exactly I wanted to take pictures of for this assignment. I had a few ideas but none I felt very strongly about and none that made me actually want to go out and take photographs. It wasn't until a couple days ago I stumbled upon a very large cemetery on accident that I knew what I was going to do for this assignment.

Objectives: From the beginning I've wanted to take on a project that either disturbs me (in a way to face my fear), or that I feel strongly about. I few things went through my mind like taking photographs of broken glass. For some odd reason it's one of my phobias but I couldn't seem to find enough broken glass. I also thought about taking pictures of litter because I hate when people litter. I happened to be taking a photo of someone's beer bottle in a cemetery when the thought came to me, why not do this assignment in a cemetery? Cemeteries have always freaked me out but I know if I can manage to stay in one for a few hours, I should be able to come out with some amazing photographs. I plan to get photos of everything that you would see in a cemetery and what exactly makes them so eerie.

Method: I'm going to be taking photos mainly in a very large cemetery I found by accident in Commerce, this way I'll be able to come back to it whenever I want to. I plan to take photographs at different times of the say as well, not just all in the middle of the day or something. That way I will have a mixture of sunsets, sunrises and the middle of the say. Judging on how my photos come out I'm also planning on turning some of them into black and white. It's something we haven't done in this class yet so it's going to be a bit of a challenge to make sure I get it perfect on the first.

Influences/Inspirations: When I first decided to take photographs of a cemetery I looked online a little to see if I could get an idea or two on something creative. It wasn't long before I came across the photographer John Thomas Grant. He has taken a great amount of cemetery photographs and they are all so elegant and beautiful. He shows that you can take something exceedingly eerie and turn it into a masterpiece. He became my inspiration for this project instantly. These are two of my favorite photographs of his taken in a cemetery and this is what is driving me to make my photos just as amazing as his.

Grant's photographs are inspiring me to play around with statues and crosses I find in cemeteries . So far I have found lots of angel statues but not many crosses. However I'm planning on shooting some more and going to even more cemeteries to find more interesting things. So far though, these are two of my favorite statue photographs that I've taken.