Susanville Cemetery

I don't know why I went by the pioneer cemetery yesterday except I think I was uptown and made a decision to go home the back.... no, I remember. I wanted to go over by the courthouse to take see how the color was coming along on that tree I posted a photo of yesterday. And that was only a block and a half from the cemetery, so I drove by and then stopped on a whim.


I like the trees big and small, the pillars big and small, gray and brown, white and black.

This what compelled me to stop. These wonderful shadows.

They only lasted a few minutes, getting smaller and thinner as I tried to capture them, and then the sun was beneath the trees on the other side of the canyon. I'll have to go back at sunset again when I give myself a bit more time, maybe twenty minutes or so at a angle low enough to make those long stretches of light and dark.

Shining on a spiderweb.

Here's my favorite, the little angel with the broken wing. I've photographed her many times and somewhere along the way I seem to have adopted her, feel like I know her. Or perhaps wish I had.


For some reason a lot of the trees are twisty. It seems sort of strange. I don't think there's a lot more wind up there than down at my house. I know there must be some scientific reason for the phenomenon but I can't help but think it has something to do with the fact that it's a cemetery.



Here's a view looking back across the street at the "cemetery" I showed you yesterday.


There's a nice view from up here. You can see the sun still hitting the valley down below.


The one tiny bit of autumn color that has changed so far. I'll have to go back after there's more color.


There are a lot of these tiny gravestones, most unmarked. I think it has to do with the high infant mortality rate. If that oak leaf is about 4-6 inches wide, than that little stone is no bigger than a piece of notebook paper.

There's only a few of these iron scroll fences. They're very pretty.

I like the globe topped stones. This one has a Mason's symbol on it. Lots of the gravestones have masonry symbolism on them, although not all of them. I know in some graveyards the Mason's graves are all in one part of the cemetery. Or Catholic graves are all in one spot. After-life segregation. Other cemeteries mix things up.

A very sweet gravestone.

Another twisty tree.

Some milkweed that somehow missed being pulled out by the caretaker. I thought that it seemed fitting for it to be growing here. Like people, they grow, flower and then age. Eventually what's left is just a dried shell. But the good news, that shell pops open and releases what's inside, the seeds float out and away, freed to fly off and start once again.


It's nice that someone fixed this broken stone although I think the missing chunk adds a bit of character.

Another group shot.

This photo is out of order. That thin white line in the middle of the stone is the very last bit of slanting sun before it blinked and was gone.


Another of the first photos I snapped. See the little white lights around in the middle of the picture? If you were there you would have seen them, little points of light floating and swirling in the setting sun. I could tell you they were little gnats glowing from the sun caught in their transluscent wings but maybe we can just agree to pretend they were wee fairies or spirits dancing the day goodbye.

A quiet monochromatic shot after the sun set.

This grave, that looks like a wee cradle, always makes me sad. Although it's far from the only child's grave. I think a lot of them came from the great flu epidemic in the beginning of the 20th century. Maybe some of the infants died because we had yet to invent the Rhogam shot for babies born with blood incompatibilities with their mothers.

Julie over on High Fiber Content just posted about this online filter program that makes your photos look "lomo-ized", whatever that means. Apparently a new sort of camera. I went and tried it on a few of my photos for this post. Let me know what you think, which ones you like best - the original or the lomo-ized ones. I think the affect is more dramatic on some images more than others.

Here's the original photo.

And with the filter. I like this one both ways but I think I prefer the quietness of less contrast on the original one.

Here's the first photo I took in it's original form.


And with the filter. I really like how dramatic this one is with the filter. And how the shadows have more color and the bright sky through the trees isn't as washed out.

Original....

....and filtered. I thought I'd really like the ironwork with the filter. It's certainly more Gothic. But I think I need to tweak it a bit more. Make it less colorful, more gothic. But perhaps it's not the right photo to appreciate the change. Hmmmm, maybe I should try some of the photos I took in the ghost town Bodie.

I hope you all aren't getting tired of all these spooky place posts, 'cuz I have a bunch more for us to visit. More cemetery walks, haunted houses, ghost tours, a pub only a mad scientist (or us wierd folk) could love, and some places that are just odd and bizarre. And the question of the day - What sort of spooky place(s) are near where you live?