Photographer

Magnus Lorentzson

Fine Art photographY

Cemetery

The Tranquillity

I believe it is the tranquillity that has drawn me to cemeteries. Or is that a reconstruction after the fact? The more time passes, the harder it becomes to tell…
If you visit burial grounds further south, the range of experiences increases in the form of artworks and chapels—some so large that I caught myself thinking it wouldn’t have surprised me to suddenly come across a FOR SALE sign.

Between Farsta, where I lived for a while in another life, and Hammarby lies Sandborg Cemetery, and THAT, dear reader, is no afterthought. That’s where it began. That’s where I first felt the urge to press the shutter and take my first cemetery photograph.

The next time my right index finger itched while in a cemetery was in South America a few years later. The rather assertive groundskeeper shouted something at me while eagerly pointing at my camera, so although I did manage to take a few pictures—furtively, with a guilty conscience and a racing pulse—none of them were worth keeping.

In the 14th arrondissement of Paris lies Montparnasse Cemetery. Two days before New Year’s Eve in 2010, somewhere between Simone de Beauvoir and André Citroën, things began to loosen up a little.
A few weeks later, “at home with Per”, it suddenly became serious (I remember I was already sold on my way up the staircase from Rue de la Réunion).
My walks during breaks at Spéos took me more and more often to Per—alias Père Lachaise.

When wandering through a cemetery in Paris, one is easily struck by the mixture…
The blend of styles and ages of the graves, of course, but even more so the variety of materials used for the flowers. You find them in ceramic, in various plastics, and of course the real thing, in different stages—from freshly picked to long gone. The contrast becomes particularly striking when you see withered flowers wrapped in gleaming plastic.

Regardez!