Graveyard

This is a grave marker for a veteran in a "Paupers Graveyard" in Flint. The site is maintained by a retired marine. The Flint Township News' Bernie Hillman is doing the story.

All of these shots were taken with a Nikon D2H, with a manual 50mm 1.4 lens. When I got to the assignment, I discovered that my camera wouldn't function with the digital lenses, meaning the single-use manual lens from the 60's had to be used. No autofocus, no zoom, and worst of all, no wide angle.

I tripped over poor Bernie trying to get the right angle with this lens.

My problems with the shot is that there are no people. Lewis is right- no people means very little interest.

Having a narrow view lens limits my options, which hurts more in the lower shots.

This particular shot had to be photoshopped for brightness and dust-cleaned.

This shot is of the marine who maintains the old graves. There were Spanish American and civil war graves there. In his left hand is a print out of the map showing where the graves are divided up by age, war, and most significantly, race. This is me compensating for not having a wide angle lens. I thought getting the man gesticulating might be interesting. I don't think it worked.

The shot to the right is self explanatory- he was clearing off the marker of a black man, a veteran who died in a vet hospital. This doesn't work because I should gave been on the other side of him. I would have gotten a ground up shot- but the lens would force me to keep quite a distance.

This is what I would prefer the blog to be about- throwing up my photojournalism and talking about what worked what didn't.

What didn't work were my digital lenses, and my fingers after shooting with no gloves on in the winter.