Bethany Eden Jacobson shooting in Green-Wood Cemetery
Photo by Bob Krasner
It’s not easy to find a new way to approach photographing what is probably the most famous cemetery in New York City; Green-Wood is certainly the most photographed.
The magnificently landscaped Brooklyn burial ground is the final destination of notable figures from Boss Tweed to Leonard Bernstein to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Ancient statues and Art Nouveau mausoleums are everywhere and its accessibility to the public makes it all the more likely to be captured on various devices.
Bethany Eden Jacobson began walking the grounds about five years ago with her camera, a Fujifilm XT3 as well as an iPhone 13 and an iPhone 6s.
“In the past five years, my mother and several very close friends died,” she explains. “As I am in my 60s, I became ever more aware of the fact of mortality and the fragility of life. On a deeper level I wanted to explore how time and memory are conveyed through this ‘resting place for the dead.’”
Continuing, she adds that “this urban oasis allows me to lose a sense of time, to let my mind to drift, to process grief, to relive memories, both joyful and painful. There are many aspects to this Victorian cemetery that transport me, despite my Jewish roots.”
Many of the images that resulted from her walks are on display in the just opened show at the EV Gallery, “Ode To a Cemetery.” Many more will be available when she publishes a book of the same name with Hirmer Press.
It’s worth seeing the works in person, as she has tossed the standard printing methods for a much more personal process.
“I wanted to explore the tactility of this particular landscape,” Jacobson relates. “So I learned the art of making handmade paper. I make it with cotton pulp, newspaper circulars, leaves, stems, shredded plastic and household cast-offs that I collected in my walks.”
Her images are then printed digitally onto transfer film and then transferred onto the…
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