Of life and death

A part of an old mausoleum in the Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.

For me the main point of this picture is the tension between life and death ilustrated by the plants growing in the mausoleum: the death of a person leads to the creation of the mausoleum which, as time goes on, gets full of cracks and forgotten and starts supporting these plants.

I added the lighting around the cross and the main plant to add an aura of holiness and increase the tension. It attempts to give the impression that the plant is also living on the soul of the person burried there.

The “forgotten” part is also a strong component of the picture: the presence of the crack and the plants leads one to the impression that the person burried there has been forgotten, that this is the only way the plants can live there. If it wasn't, others would have fixed the crack and removed the plants.

As such, the plants not only live on the earth and stone used to burry the dead, they also live on their souls and on the fact that they are no longer remembered by those who live.