Haunting Images from Decatur Cemetery (Part II)

Last February, shortly after moving to Atlanta I first visited Decatur Cemetery, the oldest burial site in the Metro Atlanta area. At the time I made a short post here on my blog with some photos and a little history of the location.

Being only a few miles from my home I had intended to return to with my camera under better lighting conditions when the foliage had begun to grow in a bit more... but before I knew it it was the fall again, so I decided to wait until this spring.

This past weekend a little over a year later and after many subsequent visits empty-handed I returned to the cemetery armed with my camera. I took advantage of the shadows that the setting sun had cast around the area and managed to photograph many of the gravestones that I missed the first time around...



Click here to view the original post from last spring with more photos.

Click here to read more about Decatur Cemetery on Wikipedia.

Exploring the Ancient Ruins of Decatur Waterworks...

Yesterday I took a trip to explore the old Decatur Waterworks Ruins near the Atlanta/Decatur border not far from my house. Built in 1906 this former water pumping station supplied the area with water until the 1940s when it was abandoned when a larger water processing plant was opened which supplied a larger part of the metro Atlanta area. It was used briefly during World War II to supply a nearby local Naval Air Station which later became Peachtree DeKalb Airport. Since 2006 the area has been recognized as historically significant by the state of Georgia and has been incorporated into the nearby 'Mason Mill Park'.

I think the combination of nature and graffiti covered debris would make for a very interesting setting to return to for some portrait and/or fashion photo-shoots in the future.



Here is an aerial photo of the facility from the 1940s before it was abandoned: (Care of Dekalb County Parks Dept.)


Bones, my pitbull also accompanied me on this photo taking adventure:

Caitlin

Yesterday morning I had a professional headshot shoot with Caitlin Mangum, a local on-camera reporter. It was a great day for it with good natural lighting. The Downtown Decatur area provided us with many excellent locations to use as backdrops for the photos. I am pleased to say that I think we achieved the balance of business and casual feels that she was looking for in her headshots.

Kenneith

Last night I had the pleasure of working with local singer Kenneith Perrin who has just returned to Atlanta after a performance in LA. He needed some album cover and updated promo photos for his new CD. The shoot was a lot of fun and it was also cool to hang out with someone else who is new to the Atlanta area. We got a lot of great shots on a few different backgrounds and lighting arrangements in the studio. One fun idea we tried was to have him pretend to sing with the lighting equipment set up to provide a 'spotlight' effect. I wanted to share a couple of the shots here on my blog:

You can learn more about Kenneith and hear some of his music at his Reverb Nation Page.

Pancakes & Booze Art Show at Gallery 1526

Last night I checked out The Pancakes & Booze Art Show at Gallery 1526 in Atlanta. There was a lot of great art work on display, live music, free pancakes, and people were allowed to bring their own beer to enjoy during the event. I brought my camera along to get some shots documenting the event for my photo blog.

I chose to forgo on-camera flash for this one in order to present the art work through my photos in it's actual lighting arrangement since this is usually taken into consideration when hanging the work. By shooting without flash I also achieved a higher level of contrast to the images with some strategic motion blur which I believed would better capture the mood and actual feel of the evening.

DeKalb Animal Hospital Photoshoot

Yesterday I shot some photos at DeKalb Animal Hospital in Tucker, GA for their new brochure. I took a few portraits of the Veterinarians and also got some shots of the facilities and the staff at work. It was a fun day of shooting and I think the photos turned out pretty great. I wanted to share a few of my favorite images from the shoot here on my blog:

I posted a few photos from my first visit to the hospital in a previous blog post here. I would highly recommend DeKalb Animal Hospital to anyone for their pet's medical care or for anyone who just needs a safe positive environment to board their pet for any amount of time.

Kennel Visit

Recently I was contacted about doing some photo work for an animal hospital in nearby Tucker, GA for their new brochure. Today I spent some time photographing in the Kennel area of the hospital where they board the dogs and cats.

These are a few of the shots from today, I attempted to not just get pictures of the pets in cages but to reveal some of the animals personality to show them being happy and relaxed in their temporary homes. Some time in the next couple weeks I will be returning to get some working photos of the staff and some portraits of the Doctors.

Haunting Images from Decatur Cemetery, The oldest burial site in Metro Atlanta

Today I spent most of this St. Patrick's day exploring Decatur Cemetery, a local burial ground that pre-dates the city's incorporation in 1823. It is the oldest cemetery in metro Atlanta and has many grave sites dating back to the 1700's. It is also the final resting place of countless soldiers from the civil war.

I was really interested in the way some of the old grave stones had degraded with time while others remained looking almost new after 200 years. Also I noticed that many if not most of the older graves were those of infants and children, although sad it should make us appreciate the state of science and medicine today since it was pretty normal to lose children to diseases back in those days.

I shot a lot of photos today while traversing the huge area that the cemetery encompasses, these are my favorites. I tried to capture some of the grave stones that I felt had the most character and the areas that surround them.

Fortunately the cemetery is only a couple miles from the house that I recently moved into so I will probably be returning there often to continue exploring some of the areas that I didn't make it to today.

If you're interested in learning more, you can read about Decatur Cemetery here on Wikipedia: Decatur Cemetery