Necromancing :: The Graveyard :: a photostory about two gothy sluts

Halifax, Nova Scotia is a variable gothic haven with its post-appocalyptic landscape of historical old buildings that are soot-darkened by the Halifax Explosion in 1917 during WWII, crumbling ruins of Citadels and old forts, Oak Island's mysterious Money Pit, ghostly tales like the Bluenose Ghost, haunted sites like St. Paul's Anglican Church (the first in Canada) where a ghostly profile darkens a top window, and the now famous Titanic graveyard located in Fairview by the old shipyards.

For me it is simply my home; the place where I grew up.  But it is a place whose foggy streets and historical beauty lures me back again and again: especially the graveyards (old haunts where I spent a good deal of my rites of passage) where the dead have been laid to rest and echoes of their dying voices resonate through the decaying tombstones.

The first thing when I arrived back home that I wanted to do was go play in the graveyard with my girlfriend Guylaine.   This graveyard is a beautiful spot right on the corner of Spring Garden Road and Barrington Street, across the street from a huge old Catholic Church.

Here we were (Guylaine and I) in the middle of the afternoon: traffic-jams and curious people in business suits awaiting the bus, the sun shining so brightly that all I wanted to do was crawl into the cooling shade beneath a tombstone.

This is one of the few times I let anyone photograph me.  Call me shy, call me superstitious with an absolute terror that my soul will be trapped by a single photograph; but in truth I am the voyeur and my place is behind the camera.  I liked this one because I look so innocent--an alter-ego perhaps?  Even my mother would think I was an angel.

All of these pictures are Black and White negs scanned with color resolution to get more tonal quality.  I liked the red hue, so I decided not to change it.  I have also done these as prints and Sepia-toned them afterwards to get a warmish hue.

Guylaine sees herself as angel here with with wings.  It was a gorgeous tombstone with luscious curves.  The wings in behind her give an added innocence to her expression.  It is an innocence not without an underlying sensuality, as if she were waiting for death to claim both physically and spiritually.

Other shoots we did this trip were ones in Point Pleasant Park amidst the Old Tower of Wales and crumbling ruins of old forts and the Public Gardens which is a romantic garden of flora, sculptural fountains, white swans and wrought-iron gates.

Around the end of the shoot I climbed up on top an old tombstone and sat like a gargoyle, the silent stone protector of the dead.