Essentially the Only One

Another one from Bellefontaine Cemetery on Sunday. The Sidney Rowland Francis tomb, a frequent subject of mine.

I felt much better this afternoon with my cold symptoms drifting away. To celebrate this revival, I took the car and my new camera out for a little drive around the nearby streets just to see what might catch my eye.

I went south down Big Bend Road, past the River Des Peres and then back again without anything sparking my enthusiasm. I considered returning home but instead went north on Pennsylvania Ave into Pagedale and past Laurel Hill Memorial Gardens

I've been there several times before but in the low evening sun something glowed that I had not noticed before. I pulled in and drove up to this extraordinary tableau.A lifesize representation of the angel standing over Jesus's empty tomb with two awed Roman soldiers looking on.

I've never seen anything quite like this before. The tomb itself was fashioned from concrete and is showing its age with cracks and discoloration. To my eyes, it resembles a gun emplacement, even down to the open door with the a concrete wall recessed shallowly beyond, much as you will find in many a pillbox.

Add to this the plastic bags and empty bottles that litter this not-very-well-kept cemetery, and the effect was eerily similar to an abandoned concrete fortification such as you will see in certain parts of Europe. (The linked photo here is of one in the North Downs in England.)

Yet here was this angel, arm raised, celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus. Very strange (to my mind). Here's the same scene with the sun on the horizon.As for the new Canon 5D Mark II, well, that worked just fine.

I took this photograph this afternoon on a too-cold winter's day. I'm going to submit it to a local art show, Winter Blues, a juried show that I may or may not get accepted to. I would not have done it were it not for the incessent bugging of my friend Grace (of this glass and others here).

We'll see.

Anyway, regardless of what happens to it, I like it a lot. It's another view of this splendidly Victorian grave