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These images come from the histroric Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama. The varied symbols and textures of memorium backed by the open skies seemd an ideal photographic project. It is a wonderful, fascinating place full of mystery and emotion, rich with the memories of lives and loves interrupted by age, epidemic and accident.

Yellow Fever forced the first burials in the Magnolia Cemetery in 1836 when all other local cemeteries became too quickly full. Dates on the headstones hint at later epidemics that rampaged through the Gulf Coast.

In Confederate Rest and the National Cemetery, within Magnolia Cemetery, lie both war dead and veterans from the War of 1812 through the Vietnam Conflict.

Perusing through the headstones reads like an aged list of who's who in Mobile -— from noted authors to famous fallen generals. But the grave sites that seem most fascinating are those bearing unfamiliar surnames yet so obviously loved and the extent to which those left behind were willing to memorialize those lives and their passing. Signs of age and decay only add to the beauty of the funerary which marks what remains.

All images are 8x10 or 8x20 silver chloride contact prints on Kodak's Azo paper and are processed to archival standards.