Every Leaf Has Its Autumn

Every Leaf Has Its Autumn is a personal reaction to my experience of Ford Cemetery during late Spring of 2017. Ford Cemetery in a 34 acre working cemetery in the heart of Plymouth. It is an important site within the city for thriving wildlife and a fascinating spiritual and site abundant with symbolism and history as well as a respectful untroubled site for the departed.


This series documents the changes sunlight has brought to the cemetery. Sunlight is the beginning of everything- it creates life, it allows life to continue, it is both nourishing and healing. The beauty of the graveyard in the sunlight and the abundance of wildlife that thrives here lightens grief, and creates a place of peace and rest amongst the often-overwhelming reality of loss. The three vital components of these images are nature, death, and the literal human subject; from light comes life, from the grave comes nature, and light allows everything to continue this way.

Every Leaf Has Its Autumn creates a quiet atmosphere of contemplation amongst a large world of grief.  The title refers to an inscription on a grave featured in one of the images. I found the inscription both hurtful and optimistic, it speaks of someone attempting to cope with a now empty space in their lives, and also of acceptance of this loss as an inevitable and natural process.  These images evoke the feeling that something is missing while also being a silent acknowledgement and meditation of human relationships, loss, light, and starting anew, in nature and in every aspect of our lives. The images taken outside of the graveyard touch on the symbolism of the light that we notice in our daily lives, the sunlight that gives us hope and makes such a difference to our minds, and highlighting the memories held and experiences we have had in such familiar places.