Dead cool

September 13, 2003 4:14 PM

Slightly ominous, slightly beautiful collection of ePostcards (and photographs) of Streatham Cemetery, rendered in the subtlest use of Flash I've ever seen (gentle animations on small portions of each image. Be sure to view the cemetery in all four seasons, multiple pix of each.
posted by jonson (26 comments total)

Stunning. Thanks for posting the link.
posted by pixeldiva at 4:26 PM on September 13, 2003

Wow. That's just beautiful. I enjoyed that very much.
Great link.
posted by Espoo2 at 4:28 PM on September 13, 2003

A recent post, but a good one.
posted by gwint at 4:30 PM on September 13, 2003

Yike! For shame on me :( At least I can rightly claim I didn't "see" it.
posted by jonson at 4:37 PM on September 13, 2003

I missed it the first time, so thanks.
posted by 2sheets at 4:39 PM on September 13, 2003

that was an awesome post, thanks. It was by far one of the best uses of flash i've seen (i love the one with the airplane in the background, took me several seconds to remember it was a photo).
posted by NGnerd at 4:45 PM on September 13, 2003

Little tricks that transform photographs into windows. Spring and summer are particularly excellent. Autumn felt hokey and artificial by comparison, which was a shame.
posted by Hogshead at 5:13 PM on September 13, 2003

I wish he'd stop doing that with the statues' eyes. It's giving me flashbacks.

Other than that, excellently done.
posted by annathea at 5:18 PM on September 13, 2003

[this is very good]
posted by normy at 5:20 PM on September 13, 2003

I loved this, thanks jonson. I missed it the first time, too. Not all the pictures are great, and I agree that some of the animations were hokey, but the project as a whole is really stunning and works amazingly well. Winter especially is just wonderful, I could almost feel the snow.
posted by biscotti at 6:03 PM on September 13, 2003

Very well (and eerily) done flash. Good post, jonson
posted by hama7 at 6:47 PM on September 13, 2003

Weird how it IMMEDIATELY overloaded on bandwidth when majcher posted it, but is fine now. I wonder if that says more about mefi's traffic load Saturday afternoons vs Thursday mornings (at least, PST), or more that people just don't want to click on my posts, but they LOVE majcher?
posted by jonson at 7:54 PM on September 13, 2003

So am I the only one who found it creepy as hell?
posted by katieinshoes at 8:41 PM on September 13, 2003

I liked his flash technique, but I wasn't so hot on applying it to this subject matter. Instead of enjoying the scenes or the photography itself, I found myself hunting for easter eggs.

Creepy, no; unsettling and intrusive as opposed to quiescent, yes. And tricks such as turning the gravestones into piano keys felt disrespectful and flippant.
posted by dhartung at 9:17 PM on September 13, 2003

katieinshoes - I found it substantially creepier the second time through, to see what annathea meant about the eyes. Apparently (in Netscape at least), some of the animations (like the eyes) only happen on mouseover. I still liked it, though.
posted by biscotti at 9:18 PM on September 13, 2003

The effect of the words fading off the headstone was beautifully eerie. The eyes, which I also missed the first time around, were sort of ... distracting. They broke the trancelike state created by the images and sound; I would have had them fade back to stone.

But [this is good].
posted by swerve at 9:42 PM on September 13, 2003

apart from the overwhelming temptation to try and mouse click shoot the crows down, and the creepy eyes on the statues, this is excellent.
posted by marvin at 9:52 PM on September 13, 2003

excellent. love the use of subtle flash.
posted by pinto at 11:09 PM on September 13, 2003

Some great photography there. It amazes me how somewhere as dreary and drab as a cemetery can be made to look so beautiful. I've tried photographing two cemeteries near to me but the results were awful. I guess the timing is critical, these were all taken at dawn or dusk.
To be honest I found the flash a distraction in most images. Where just one or two elements were moving it was great, it added real depth, but where there things like plants popping up, it looked a bit silly.
posted by chill at 1:45 AM on September 14, 2003

I normally deprecate double posts and curl my lip at the "I missed it the first time so it's OK" justification, but like many others I couldn't get to it the first time and can now, and I'm very glad not to have missed it. So it's OK. Thanks, jonson.

(I too disliked the eye thing. Once might have been all right as a startling effect, but after a couple you start expecting it and being annoyed in advance.)
posted by languagehat at 6:56 AM on September 14, 2003

I just know the next time I walk past a statue I'll remember those eyes!

I couldn't work out what the voices under the 5th and 9th crosses in Winter, were saying. Does anyone know?
posted by Tarrama at 7:26 AM on September 14, 2003

People LOVE me!
posted by majcher at 9:29 AM on September 14, 2003

I love you, majcher! I didn't know how to tell you, so I had to awkwardly double post one of your posts in order to work up the courage to talk to you.
posted by jonson at 10:21 AM on September 14, 2003

Why do some people focus on the very few details they dislike, at the expense of the bigger picture? I absolutely loved this site. Jonathan Clark has inspired me. That's a good thing.

Did this work remind anyone else of John Foxx (specifically "The Garden" and "Cathedral Oceans)?
posted by davebush at 2:59 PM on September 14, 2003

fantastically original in a sea of similar beings.
posted by mrplab at 6:26 PM on September 14, 2003

I was probably more amazed than most as I work in Streatham and it is one of the ugliest parts of London, which is going some. Perhaps I should produce a subtly animated companion piece on the Streatham High Road, featuring quiescent heroin addicts; multiple, brightly illuminated fried chicken outlets; atmospheric drifts of garbage and the legendary Caesars nightclub. You can see some delightful photos on my blog if you like: http://rik.typepad.com
posted by rikabel at 9:05 AM on September 15, 2003