Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland

We visited the Cleveland area to help my aunt celebrate her 96th birthday. We gave her a choice of where she wanted to go for an outing and she chose the Lake View Cemetery. I grew up with my family having picnics in cemeteries while my grandmother looked for ancestors, so this was not a strange request, although we have no known ancestors there. One of the main attractions and tallest building in the cemetery is the James Garfield Memorial. I wasn’t expecting too many photo ops in the cemetery, but this was a beautiful building with lots of interesting light and shadows. The docent was a retired history professor, who had many interesting stories about Garfield that kept the non photographers in our small group entertained while my husband and I had fun photographing. All photographs were taken with my infrared camera.

The rotunda with a statue of Garfield was very ornate with gilded mosaics, but I preferred the more sparse hallways around the main area. There are windows that cast shadows that give a middle eastern flavor. The building has deteriorated over the years despite a renovation in 1984, so there is also a feeling of decay. I used sepia toning and added grain to give this a feeling of age. Funds are now being raised for more extensive renovations.

The stairs were narrow stone that was well worn and made cool patterns in the dim light.