In my last blog, "Can a Cemetery Be Haunted?", I talked about a cemetery that I am researching for my project on cemetery statuary and tombstones here in the UK, where I get a high amount of unexplained images, especially on the nights when the church is having bell ringing practice.

I got some requests to see some of the images. Now, I have posted images before online and have found them on other sites without giving me artistic credit for them, it is a problem for the artistic world. I am an aritist, it is my career, please be considerate if you copy them and allow me artistic credit for the images. That is how I become successful as an artist. I appreciate any assistance to help explain these images, but please communicate to me that you want to assist me by altering them in an investigative way BEFORE you do, I love to meet people and I would appreciate any explanation of what the procedure is that you will be doing and please share your image findings with me. I am so eager to learn.

Respect my artisitic sensitivity towards my work and I am yours for life.  

I have posted on my page some images of the cemetery itself and images of the cemetery taken on 'one night of bell ringing practice'. Actually all of the images posted were taken on the same day, both the day and night shots were taken with a digital camera, Samsung D103 with a built in flash set on 8 mgpix. I used the 'program' setting. That is about as techincal as I get on my photography. I do not know the exact temperature or the humidity readings at the time of the shots.

I did record the evening with a digital recorder but mainly because I wanted a recording of the bell ringing, not for EVPs. I have listened to the recordings but they are pretty contaminated with street traffic and such that you can't tell too much about it, and when the bells are ringing, that is ALL you can hear. Except, that I noticed that the birds sang louder when the bells rang. I would have to listen to it more thoroughly to detect anything of significance in that direction. And if I did find something, I would have no idea what to do with it. I would have to write another blog on here asking you good people what to do.

I am still researching the cemetery historically but I do know that the tower is the oldest part of the church, dating back to the 1500's and there is a reference to a chapel being on this location in the 1400's, the first written mention of this site. There is also evidence that a burial ground has been on this site since prehistoric times. This area of England is the home of the Celtic tribes, the oldest indigenous tribes of England. It is located in the southwest of England, bordering Cornwall, which is located south of Wales. It is just south of King Arthur country on the coast bordering the English Channel as it meets the Atlantic.

The cemetery and church is located in a small victorian seaside resort village. The is no statuary in the cemetery, which is not unsual in small churchyard cemeteries in the UK. It does have a crypt in one corner that is a bit unsual in architecture. It is surrounded on three sides by residences and backs up to woodlands and open fields. I have included day images of the cemetery so that you can get a better feel for the surroundings and layout of the cemetery to better view the night images.

Now, on to the night images. (Please remember, all the night shots were taken during bell ringing practice which lasted about and hour and a bit). Slideshow (1) sequence begins with the image of the reddish object in front of my lens. I was standing in front of the crypt when this was taken in the begining of the photo session. I do not have a strap on my camera. I always take them off when I shoot, I have had too many shots ruined because of a camera strap falling in front of the lens. I have close cropped hair, not even long enough to blow in the wind I am afraid. I have no idea what that reddish image is, I did not see anything in front of my lens when I took the image.

I then went to the side of the crypt (of which there is a day shot of) and took some images of the inside. I had to hold the camera above my head and put it through the wrought iron to photograph the inside so I had no idea what was in my frame at the time of the shooting. I took a series of three photos with about a six second interval between each. I again did not see what is on the image results with the naked eye. I turned my face downward and held my breath so as not to breath towards the camera lens and to steady my shot. Even with 35m cameras, your breath can fog a lens. As you can see, the first has a mist/fog, the second does not and the third does. In the daylight images of the crypt, you can see how far the cross tombstone is inside the crypt and you can see how the walls are constructed for the crypt. This area of the cemetery is an area I am not comfortable in and I will force my husband to walk with me while I shoot in this area day or night. He normally does not leave the churchyard path, so as not to get in my shots.

I then walked toward the center of the churchyard and took the next five image series with the same time intervals between them, about six seconds. I took three of the cross tombstone (the same cross tombstone that is in the daytime images) that ended up with strange lighting I cannot explain. At first observation, I thought maybe the strange lighting was caused by flash back from the built in flash on the camera, but on closer examination, I am not so sure. These images are placed on the slideshow in the order of shooting. On the first, the strange lighting is brighter, the second not so bright and in the third it is gone. I turned slightly to the right of the cross without moving my position and took the next photo where you see a strange mist/fog and then I stepped backwards a few steps and took a wide angle of that same area that contained the mist/fog, all were taken with the same six second intervals between them. Again I did not see what is on the images with my naked eye and neither did my husband who was several feet away to the left of this area.

I want to say here that there was no wind that night, it was a clear night with no moon. I would say the air tempature was around 46 to 50 F because I had a light jacket on and was comfortable. I have no idea about the humidity, but it was a clear night, so I am assuming it was low. I do not smoke nor does my husband and we were the only two people in the cemetery during the photo session.

In slideshow (2) the sequence begins with the image of a small wispy mist/fog in the upper right hand corner of the photo. I walked further down the churchyard path, past the church, towards the open field gate, just in front of the yew tree that is in the day shots, and took this next series of three shots, with a six second interval between. (that is about how long it takes for the flash to recharge on this camera)

The image with the clear green, for the lack of a better word, 'orb', in it was taken on my way back towards the crypt looking towards the church. You may notice, if you can zoom, that in the shot, near the church's door, you can see two eyes glowing. It is a dog, one of the many animals that came into the churchyard during the bell ringing. I stepped onto the path, walked towards him and took a shot of the dog coming towards me. Now I am not one for orbs, I find them annoying in my shots with a digital, but these two are a bit different than most I get. I would say it was taken about 20 seconds after the clear green one.

The last image in the slideshow (2) is near the crypt and was taken when I went there to get my digital recorder, where I had left it on the window edge of the crypt for the entire period of the night shoot. I went alone to get it and it felt so stange I turned and took the shot with the mist/fog results.

The timing of all my photos is on instincts, day or night, indoors or out, still life or action. I have found over the years that instinctively my timing is good for photography. If I think too much about it, the photo's outcome is not as good, in my artistic opinion. For the night shots, I just walked around and shot when it 'felt' right. With no moon, it was hard enough to see where you were going or what you were shooting.

So any comments on the images will be appreciated, if you have any. I live for opinions of my work, critical or not, they all help me grow and learn as an artist and human being. I am pretty confused and intrigued about the results of the shots from this cemetery and 'dying' :) for some explaination. I hope you enjoy them.

smile on

Jacque Brown

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