Figure 1 – The glade at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, an Allegory of the 19th Century. Concord, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2018.

Figure 1, I believe, is an image that epitomizes Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. It shows the view from Authors’ Ridge through the trees and down into an open glade. We have spoken many times of the nineteenth century, that first century of photography. Here the souls of that century sleep, neatly stored beneath stone monuments. The scene is always bucolic, peaceful, and we invariably feel a sense of loss and remorse. The passions of the day are now quaint footnotes except the one’s like race which still burn in our hearts. We all read Alcott, and Thoreau, and Emerson as children. And, of course, there was Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, which taught us about intolerance and hypocrisy – such a meaningful and timely story for our own age. What appealed to me most when I took the photograph of Figure 1 was the blurriness of the scene within the glade. You cannot quite make objects out with any clarity in the afternoon light. Like the remembrance of these people, what they said, what they meant, and what they stood for has become a sort of blur. As you look at this little scene, you might for a moment turn around and look behind you.

“Stop traveller and cast an eye,
As you are now so once was I,
Prepare in time make no delay
For youth and time will pass away.“

Canon T2i with  EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens at 75 mm ISO 200, Aperture Priority AE Mode 1/80th sec at f/7.1 with -1 exposure compensation.