Special Pages

▼

Sunday, January 11, 2009

A snowy day in a nearby graveyard

Got a hankerin' for gloomy photographs of a cemetery in winter? No? Well, take a look at the boneyard pictures below, anyway--with the dark sky, and lonely white expanses of the place, they're like views of a weird, other world of the dead. (Or maybe undead!)

Jane and I have been in our new house for just over a week, and and it is cold and snowy here. We live on top of a hilly ridge called Spring Hill, and on a hilltop a few blocks away is an old cemetery. A few weeks before we moved in, I snapped the photos below to share here. (Click on any photo for a larger view.)

I've always felt not enough horror movies take advantage of the eeriness of lonely, snowy settings. And as folks who like cemeteries, Jane and I were happy to find this steep hillside graveyard near our new home.

Not seen in the photos are the scores of ravens that live in this area. They were many at the cemetery when we visited, but they would fly away when you got within 20 to 30 yards; so only a few show up in the pictures.

A picnic at this site, when the weather is warmer, will be in order. A great place to munch sandwiches while reading Poe and poetry!













The final, fitting photo of the day: an angel left behind among the stones:

at

9 comments:

  1. Shotgun_MarioJanuary 11, 2009 at 2:58:00 AM EST

    #3 & #7 look really good to me.

    Nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks black trees, white snow, and gray sky is a eerie setting.

    Winter's so quite as well, few birds like in spring & summer, and no leaves to blow like in the fall. Just the endless wind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 11, 2009 at 10:19:00 AM EST

    Beautiful pics. Even the angel is eerie.

    I agree about the under-usage of wintry locales in horror. Snow can be an unstained shroud, bitter cold a unique terror.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Max the drunken severed headJanuary 11, 2009 at 11:44:00 AM EST

    Thanks for the comments, Mario and anonymous. I appreciate it.

    I always seem to get feedback when I post cemetery pictures.

    Huge, sprawling,and very old Allegheny Cemetery is a spot I plan to visit in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 12, 2009 at 1:48:00 PM EST

    brrrrr......

    There's an AMAZING old cemetery, up on a hill in Saratoga...

    Great week,
    -Craig

    ReplyDelete
  5. raycastileJanuary 13, 2009 at 2:21:00 PM EST

    I hope I make it up there to visit this year. It looks like a nice place to hang out, gaze at the distant hillsides and wonder what unspeakable things are going on just beyond our vision.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Max the drunken severed headJanuary 13, 2009 at 3:13:00 PM EST

    I really hope you make it up here, too, Raymond!

    Coffin Ray among the 'stones-- priceless.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Famous Monster of MplsJanuary 13, 2009 at 3:39:00 PM EST

    Forget Monster Bash. Let's set up the Toy Tour inside this cemetery. Looks closer to the airport than Butler is!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Max the drunken severed headJanuary 13, 2009 at 5:16:00 PM EST

    Bring it on!

    ReplyDelete
  9. GFS3January 23, 2009 at 12:12:00 PM EST

    Yeah, that's a damn creepy Poe-like graveyard. I hope you got out before dark.

    ReplyDelete