I have been lucky enough to visit Paris many many times over the years, the first time being in 1972 when I was only around 9 years old. It has been a city that I felt drawn back to and where I have always found something new to keep my interest alive.
One of the places I had wanted to see was the Pere Lachaise cemetery but until a trip in 2023 I had never really had the opportunity to do so. I knew it was the resting place of many famous people and this draws many tourists to visit and when you go in you are handed a map showing where many celebrities from the worlds of literature, philosophy, music, art and fashion are buried. While I was curious to a certain degree to see the final resting places for some of these famous people I was more interested in the scale of the cemetery and the air of calm in the heart of a city. It was like a small town with streets and alleyways, paved and marked with street signs. There was birdsong and squirrels, the colours and scents of autumn and rather than hunt for famous graves I looked at the memorials for ordinary people and reflected on what their lives might have been like. I didn't photograph Jim Morrison's grave or Oscar Wilde's, or Edith Piaf's but I reflected on the other 70,000 people whose life journey had ended here.
I shot these images in black and white because on a bright autumn day the colours didn't really suit the atmosphere I wanted to convey. This is a calm but sombre place and where I have used colour it is to highlight detail in some of the crypts that were open or damaged in some way.
I am glad that I finally got the chance to visit the cemetery and in some ways I am glad that it took me so long to get there. Perhaps, had I gone when I was younger I may have been drawn more to the celebrity graves rather than being able to appreciate the serenity and beauty of the place. I won't say any more about the individual images but hope as you look at them you will get a sense of what I mean and how I felt. If you feel so inclined why not leave a comment.
