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The other day, I headed down to the Hinsdale Pet Cemetery. It's a cute little place, with mostly tiny sized graves and upright stones. Most of the animals buried there are dogs, although there are cats and other species. I was hoping for some interesting shots, but when I got there, there were a few guys taking a break from having just finished clearing away all the grave decorations. So I'll have to look another day for what I wanted. For now, I have a couple landscape photos of the place.

After that, I swung by Bronswood, to take a few grave shots, but mostly went in hopes of Deer. They are an amazingly intuitive herd. Generally, if a person(let alone a car) goes by, they run. They've become pretty use to me though in a relatively shot period of time, and have started to approach me, instead of the other way around. One of them, comes as close as ten feet to me. They give me some excellent photo opportunities. Read more

I wish I had more cemetery photos to post- but life and the weather have been chaotic, so I haven't been able to take more photos lately, and what I do have, I haven't had time to edit. These though are some photos I've taken that aren't of grave sites, but that I like, so thought I'd share (as with the other photos on this blog, if you want any of these made into cards or posts, it's no trouble!) Read more

I hope every one reading had a good holiday! Now that the stress of holidays has passed, I'm back to posting. I mentioned in my previous post on Mount Carmel, that there are many beautiful mausoleums there, and I do mean many! They are scattered through out, but there are also roads on which there are nothing but; it's almost like rows of little bungalows for the departed. Many are adorned with statues, benches, elaborate doors and of course, stained glass windows. Read more

While it is sad to see when something has been damaged, or that something once meaningful has been neglected, there is also a certain aesthetic quality to them. They often give the impression of having some incredible story to tell, if they could just talk. Here some that caught my eye in late 2007: Read more

Queen of Heaven is a Roman Catholic cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, consecrated in 1947. Operations were combined with the neighboring Mount Carmel Cemetery in 1965. There are currently over 122,000 people buried there, and over 3,000 annual internments. The adjacent Queen of Heaven Mausoleum, has 30,000 crypts. Read more

Mount Carmel is a Roman Catholic cemetery that was consecrated in 1901. It's located right across the street from Queen of Heaven, which it combined operations with in 1965. While many nationalities can be found at both, Mount Carmel is predominantly Italian, and Queen of Heaven is predominantly Slavic. The cultural influences come through in the tombstones, statues and mausoleum designs.  Read more

At the corner of Meyers and Roosevelt road in Lombard Illinois, is Trinity Lutheran church. If you look carefully, behind a row of bushes and trees, is a tiny cemetery. There are only three, short, and crowded rows, and a few additional scattered monuments in the lot beside the church. All the stones we looked at were German, and from the 1800's to early 1900's. Some were too worn to read. The following photos were taken in December of 2007. Read more

Woodlawn Cemetery, in Forest Park, on the outskirts of Chicago, is home to Showman's Rest. In the spring of 1918, Hagenback-Wallace Circus, one of the premier circuses of the time, was decimated when the circus train was in an accident on it's way to Hammond, Indiana. News of the accident quickly spread and The Showmen's League of America provide a last resting place for the victims at Woodlawn Cemetery. Because some of the dead had been hired just hours or days before the accident, and because many performers were often known only by nicknames, there are many gravestones at Showman's rest that are labelled "Unknown Male" followed by a number, or nicknames, such as "Baldy". Most of the left side of Showman's Rest has the burial sites of those killed in the 1918 tragedy. The other half is used for other circus performers, up to the present. Read more

The following user icons were created from my cemetery photographs. They are free for anyone to use as an icon, but please credit to GreyLetter.com if you use them. Many can be used as-is while others have space for modification- adding text, your name, etc.. Enjoy!

I have added a sales area to GreyLetter.com; the card sets, calenders, posters and prints are all based on my own work. The calenders will be available in the 1-month at a time flip style for 2009 when I have time to sort through more photographs. I'll also be adding a section for original paintings and commissions in the near future.

In this post though, I'd like to mostly talk about Amazon.com; I've signed up as an affiliate to earn a commission on books and other items sold by them, through this site. While Amazon is not my first choice, for various reasons I won't get into, for sites with affiliate programs they have a large selection with good prices. If GreyLetter.com becomes more successful, where I can afford to act as a distributor, I'd like to support more small businesses (and by the way, if any of you do know of independent businesses that fit with the GreyLetter.com theme I'd love suggestions).

While browsing Amazon, I found a number of things that I had to share for their amusement factor. For instance, who doesn't need a Giant Plush Black Death Microbe or a Night Of The Living Dead Air Freshener? I'm not sure I'd want to know what that one smells like (rotting flesh perhaps).

Do people keep stealing your parking spot? Scare them off with the threat of being stuffed and boxed. Have a bare wall? Liven- or should I say- deaden- it up with this Kamasutra to Death Poster. You can even put your CD's to rest in this Tombstone like CD Holder

Do the winter holidays come too soon for you? Are you longing for Day of the Dead, or Halloween already? Why not decorate your Christmas Tree with strings of Skull and Tombstone Lights, Day of Dead Skull Ornaments or these more Traditional Skull Ornaments?