Lighting Cemeteries

There’s nothing quite like running around in cemeteries dating back to the 1800’s at 1 o’clock in the morning.  Chelsea and I did exactly that the other night to take photos for an upcoming VOX Magazine article on old Missouri cemeteries.  Since we both had to shoot the Mizzou Black & Gold basketball game that evening, we got off to a late start which meant we had to be a bit sketchy and walk around these places at odd hours of the morning.  We visited the Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville, MO which is supposed to be one of the oldest cemeteries in all of Missouri (we are told it was there before Missouri was even a state).

I really like the first picture below.  Most of the trees in the cemetery have turned yellow during fall and they were all backlit by the street lights surrounding the cemetery.  It made for a cool picture.

The second photo is about a 30 second exposure.  Chelsea hid behind a tombstone and shined a flashlight on all the back gravestones as well as the trees.  I stood behind the camera and lit the graves in the foreground.  We shot this photo for use as a cover for the magazine, so we left space to work with at the top and bottom for the designers.  A fun, but creepy night:

WalnutGrove_01

WalnutGrove_02

Leave a Reply