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I am pleased to offer here, the work of Rebecca Benjamin, noted cemetery photographer. These are real photographs. She visits cemeteries and has photographed the headstones over a period of many years. She says, "Old cemeteries are like outdoor museums or stone gardens. They have great character. The headstones and mausoleums are all that remain of the stone mason's art, and nature has weathered the stones, adding moss, age, and patina. The photos are shot in a pictoralist style, emphasizing the textures in the cemetery." In Halloween In America, the period leading up to Halloween where the "veil" or separation between the worlds of the living and the dead becomes thinner. This thinning of the veil allows the spirits of the dead to pass over into the realm of the living more easily than at other times of the year. Hence, there are more ghost sightings during the month of October. Photographs are taken in October and what you see in the following pages, is from our new book Ghosts In The Cemetery (The cost is $19.95 plus postage ($3.50 in the US)). The inspiration for the "feel" of Ghosts In The Cemetery is a book by Jorges Luis Borges called Labyrinths. Both books are designed to subvert, often with gentle humor, our comforting presuppositions about ourselves, our place in the universe, or the intelligibility of the material universe itself, that is, if it is in fact something other than a dream. There is no difference between fiction and fact; created reality is as real as observed reality and vice versa; any attempt on our part to describe reality is bound to be a fiction. In most technical ghost hunting books, to prove the existence of ghosts, one must shoot on film. This is so the film can be examined to actually prove that the ghost is on the film and not just a fabrication. As these are shot on a digital camera they are not "proof" of ghosts, only photographs of cemeteries. These are offered as a tribute to the dedicated ghost hunters who brave bad weather, weird people, and exaggerated claims to capture some readings on their instruments and photographs of elusive ghosts. It is also a wake up call to those who take our old cemeteries for granted. They are beautiful places that deserve to be protected from neglect and vandalism. The photos have been optimized to load on a web page. The originals exist in a higher quality 240 to 300 dpi "TIFF" format. I hope to continue adding photos to these pages. For books or original, signed photographs. Individual photos are available for sale at $200.00 for (approximately) 8 x 10 inches. Each has been matted and framed. They can be ordered from Stuart Schneider, P.O. Box 64, Teaneck, NJ 07666. All photos are copyright 2000 through 2008. |
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, New York
Here is the story that I wrote for the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery:
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, New York
The cemetery in Sleepy Hollow is a beautiful Victorian era cemetery with many hills and valleys in a gothic park-like atmosphere, situated on the east side of the Hudson River. It contains the final resting place of Washington Irving, the author of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Ichabod Crane's encounter with the Headless Horseman. Washington Irving wrote, in a letter addressed to the editor of Knickerbocker Magazine, “I send you herewith a plan of a rural cemetery projected by some of the worthies of Tarrytown, on the woody hills adjacent to the Sleepy Hollow Church. I have no pecuniary interest in it, yet I hope it may succeed, as it will keep that beautiful and umbrageous neighborhood sacred from the anti-poetical and all-leveling axe. Besides, I trust that I shall one day lay my bones there.” Washington Irving’s gothic revival home, known as Sunnyside, is situated not far from his gravesite, along the Hudson River.
Also buried at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery are other luminaries such as: Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, William Rockefeller, and Elizabeth Arden. The television series “Dark Shadows”, which featured vampire Barnabas Collins, witches, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures, inspired a film, “House of Dark Shadows”. In the film, Lyndhurst, a gothic revival mansion in nearby Tarrytown, was the Collinwood estate and a mausoleum in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was shown as the Collins family tomb. The cemetery is rather renowned and guided tours are offered in October. It is also adjacent to the cemetery of the Old Dutch Church, which is the resting place of those who inspired Irving's characters of Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones, and the headless Hessian soldier.
The scent of roses drew me to the location in the cemetery. In early October there were few flowers in bloom, yet the smell of roses hung in the air. The story of Naomi is both sad and full of emotion. She was a local girl who took great delight in her rose garden. The first thing that visitors to the home were shown was her beautiful rose garden. She had married a wonderful man and soon thereafter had two beautiful children. Her husband died suddenly one summer, and she became morose over his death, staying in her rose garden and shunning friends and neighbors. A cholera epidemic, a summer later, took her two children. She told no one of their deaths and buried them in the rose garden. Weeks passed without anyone seeing her outside the home. The neighbors began to wonder where Naomi and her children were keeping themselves. A few friends went to the home and found Naomi’s decomposing body in the rose garden next to a freshly dug hollow in the ground. By her body was a note that asked anyone who found her to bury her among the roses next to her children. Her relatives refused to bury her in the garden, but chose to bury her and the children in the North Tarrytown (now Sleepy Hollow) Cemetery next to her husband. To this day, the scent of roses is almost always present near the gravesite.
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, New York
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, New York
Boothbay, Maine
Edgecomb, Maine
Quebec City, Canada
Quebec City, Canada
Copyright 2002 through 2009, Stuart Schneider and Rebecca Benjamin
