Julia Dean is having her Sixth Annual Alternative Photography Exhibit starting on Friday, August 14 (opening reception from 5-8pm that evening).
This year I decided to submit a photo I took a few years ago in Ohio. I shot it with Kodak HIE (Infrared) film (unfortunately no longer available) with a 25A red filter.
It was shot on a piece of property owned by distant cousins of mine right outside Bladensburg, Ohio. I asked family member Dixie Davidson Furlong to reminisce about the property as I knew she could write about it much better than me.
“I believe Dad bought the property in the 60’s. In the middle of one of the open pastures on a high point on the property, which is located a few miles outside of Bladensburg, is the Patterson graveyard. There are definitely graves from the 1800’s in there, but I’m not sure how far back it goes. Kim remembers that as a young girl she discovered a stone that revealed a female who had lived a short life, one that matched her age at the time. The discovery induced serious thoughts about life and death for her that day.
As I understood it from my father, because the Pattersons created this family graveyard, complete with a beautiful hand-hewn stone wall surrounding the spot, it is always to be maintained by the local township/county. As such, it also is not considered “owned” land. Thus, although my sister now holds the deed for the surrounding land, the graveyard is not considered her property.
Groundhogs have disturbed the grave markers over the years, and some markers have fallen and broken and pieces lie among the grasses around the roots of the protective trees. It’s a beautiful, quiet, respectful site and I hope it remains as such.”
I went back recently to this contact sheet and found an image I shot of the actual gravestones which is below.
A special thank you to Russell Adams of Schulman Photo Lab for doing such an incredible job printing these images for me.
