Who writes for this website?
Ed Snyder: Ed lives in the Philadelphia area and works as a clinical engineer in a local teaching hospital. He has been making photographs for the past 30 years.
Early work-color landscape photography–has been shown in New York and Philadelphia galleries. Current work has been shown in New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
Cemetery angels exhibit a kind of tension between freedom and confinement, something many people relate to. The less-than-angelic, creepier work allows me to express my dark side, as Mark Twain would say. Like many, I have a morbid curiosity about death. Even the angels appear weather-worn and world-weary-I so prefer crumbling gothic statuary to the popular halo-and-fluffywings variety. View Ed’s Flickr Photos
What is the purpose of the site?
StoneAngels.net merges art and photography with society’s desire to come to terms with dying and death. Death is one of life’s only certainties, and through the ages, every culture has developed ways to dispose of the dead, mourn the loss of loved ones, and move forward with their lives.
Cemeteries are a very visual reflection of these customs. Living in Philadelphia, we frequent Laurel Hill Cemetery, one of the country’s oldest and most ornate. A casual stroll through one of the winding walkways yields numerous cultural references of the past. Angels look down from the heavens. Sphinxes keep watch over mausoleums. And ceramic photographs of the dead are preserved on memorials.
StoneAngels tries to combine these symbolic elements to tell the story of death and mourning from early times until the present.
How can I contact you?
You may post comments in the comments section or email us privately through the contact form.
