Pinhole pictures of Warriston Cemetery Edinburgh Scotland

The former final grandeur of Warriston Cemetery in Edinburgh has been allowed to decline. Once the well to do of the city were quite literally dying to get in here. It is still possible to see the formal layout through the wilderness that has been allowed to take over. The main paths are clear, but mature trees have now grown tall enough to shroud many of the still impressive monuments. Once upon a time Warriston Cemetery would have presented a prime location in which to feature your monumental mark for those that recorded your life in a few brief stone cut lines. This was at one time a premier place to lay your head to rest as you awaited the rousing call of the Last Trump. Unfortunately it now it looks like the dead have been too shallowly buried and that they have been staging an uprising throughout the cemetery.

Some stone monuments are said to have been altered whilst the cemetery was still in private hands, but many of the stones that have been laid low were toppled on council orders. The current trend for ensuring safety is maintained does not stretch to repairing the striking burial markers, but there is little hesitation in having them pushed over to form a fallen forlorn grave stone littered confusion. The social history shown by the fashion of the stones and documentary evidence delivered through the inscriptions is a vital part of the heritage of Edinburgh which seems currently to be undervalued, but this whole site may one day be seen as a rich resource worth investigating, recording and using.

There is something very pertinent about looking into the final rest which awaits us all. No matter how or where we come to be at the point at which we finish this life our final statements give eternal insights. There is almost nothing as enduring and as intriguing as the pyramids. Here at Warriston several grave stones take on Egyptian styles in homage of the history of earlier funerary monuments. Even today we follow earlier customs and in our way we continue traditions often more so in death than in life.

In an attempt to align these pictures with some of the traditions presented in the Warriston Cemetery pinhole photography was chosen to capture the contemporary scene. The simple pinhole lens seems to record historic sights very evocatively. The pictures presented here cover up a little of the dishevelment and mask some of the detritus now allowed to remain in the cemetery. Through the pinhole lens we are shown an image of how things might have looked, or at least of how a camera might have recorded them when the monuments here were proud statements set out in an organised formal garden of remembrance. By creating old style, or retro photos it is possible to look back at a time when these imposing granite stone seeds were planted on the manicured surface as lasting tributes to those that lay beneath.

PHH Sykes ©2011

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