A Photo Essay of Historic Oakland Cemetery

A couple weeks ago (on a much less dreary Sunday than today) I visited Oakland Cemetery, located in the center of Atlanta it is the areas largest cemetery and one of Atlanta's largest public park spaces. Founded in 1850 as 'Atlanta Cemetery', it has grown over the years to it's current 48 acres, more than eight times it's original size. It is now the final resting place of over 70,000 people including many civil war dead for the battles in Atlanta and surrounding areas, many of whom are buried in 'unknown' graves.

There are two characteristics of the cemetery that I found particularly interesting and a testament to the social change that has occured over the time since the cemetery was founded; The first is the fact that the older burial sections are segregated into white, jewish, and 'colored' sections. Unfortunately much of the colored section now appears to be empty since due to the lower social standing of the individuals buried there many of the graves were made of wood and have been lost to time. The other noteable area of the cemetery is 'Potter's Field' an open field that was used as a mass grave of sorts for over 17,000 poor or unidentified people over the years.

Here are some of the images I captured while exploring the cemetery. Unfortunately I had to limit the number of photos shared here to twelve of my favorites. I like that when viewing these photos you can't help but notice the contrast of the Victorian-era graves with the evidence of the urban metropolitan area in which they are located such as parts of the Atlanta skyline and a subway train passing through the background of one of the photos...



To learn more about Oakland Cemetery visit the Official Website or it's Wikipedia Page.

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:

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