A Poet of Enduring Greatness

"Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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My visit to the grave of Emily Dickinson last month has rekindled my interest in photographing graves of the well known. I've tried to capture Ralph Waldo Emerson's grave numerous times, but haven't come away with anything I'm happy with. His gravestone is a granite boulder with a difficult-to-read verdigris-y brass plaque that sits in dappled light.

I've had this idea for a while to do some light painting at his grave, but that would require going to the cemetery at night. I've already chickened out once when I attempted to do it alone.

So after extracting a promise from my husband to accompany me to the cemetery at dusk, and promising my daughter we'd do some light painting ("Oh! I love light painting!" she said when she found out where we were going), we headed over to the cemetery.

The granite boulder is Ralph Waldo Emerson's grave. The stone to the left marks the grave of his wife, Lidian. The stone to the right marks the grave of their daughter Ellen Tucker Emerson.

I would've liked to have had a few more attempts to get a better exposure, but the mosquitoes numbered in the gazillions, it was hot and humid and sticky, and my dear husband's understanding and patience and with me and my flashlights and grave blips was just beginning to wear a little thin.


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"It is not length of life, but depth of life."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson





Edit: To see other graves I've photographed, click the "famous grave" tag below.