Quiet Moment. Cimetiere du Nord, Paris. 2004 Photograph - Limited Edition of 50

I love cemeteries. Mostly, because I love history -- and, the documentation of history; of lives -- and graveyards are filled with stories, big and small. I'm in the process of putting together a series of photographs I've made over the decades at cemeteries around the globe and this one is from the Cemetery of Montmarte, Cimetiere du Nord, I made during a visit to Paris back in 2004. My wife, then my girlfriend [we got engaged on that trip on the Trocadero, overlooking the Eiffel Tower], and I had gone to Montmarte to sit on the staircase at the Sacre-Coeur Basilica overlooking the city and on the way back to our hotel we stumbled upon the cemetery. We erroneously thought it might be the cemetery where legendary Doors frontman Jim Morrison and other stars like Oscar Wilde and Frederic Chopin are buried -- turns out, that's Pere Lachaise Cemetery -- but we wandered nevertheless and found many intriguing and memorable sights. I even managed to get a shot of a black cat wandering a path between crypts, though the shot isn't good enough for anything but a memory at this point. This print might be small, but the symbolism -- the cross, the crypt, the graves and that man silently, quietly reflective, standing in an opening in the background, well . . . I always thought it a really interesting print. And, by the way, this shot was among many I made at this particular scene in the cemetery and, to be honest, that mourner is there in some of the shots -- and not there in others -- and I really wasn't aware of when he got there or when he left, so it was partly just my good fortune that he appeared as he did . . . Printed on Canson Arches Aquarelle Rag, this numbered and limited edition print measures 8 x 8.1 -- or 9.6 x 9.6 with borders . . .