austereprint:

by Michelle Frankfurter

I took this photograph during a funeral service in Haiti’s National Cemetery in Port-au-Prince. The sprawling cemetery in Haiti’s capital city lies at sea level; therefore, the tombstones are raised above ground. Nevertheless, because Haiti is so heavily deforested, flash floods occurring during the rainy season send water cascading from the hills where it rushes through the cemetery, often flushing out caskets along with their human remains. Although I was present in Haiti during one of its many tumultuous periods of political unrest, when violent killings were a nearly daily event, this particular funeral was unrelated to the then current state of conflict. Nonetheless, death and funerals are never ending in Haiti. I had taken several photographs showing the larger overall scene: a group of about fifty mourners perched like a flock of solemn birds amid a landscape of raised tombstones. I eliminated most of the literal context of the image; the tight perspective resulted in an ambiguous photograph.