Lonely Planet community blog

For our most recent contest, we wanted to see your very best photographs from cemeteries around the world and you really dug up some great ones. We received over 500 photos, and the quality and breadth was truly breathtaking. You showed us cats, cows, birds, ghosts and some suspicious people dressed like vampires; hanging coffins, broken coffins, and unearthed skeletons; the grave of a clown, a mobster that looked uncannily like David Boreanaz, and a historical figure once portrayed in film by Madonna; you showed us some real gallows humour, and even politics from beyond the grave. One might be tempted to say that it was the most inter-esting contest we’ve plotted yet.

It was a dead heat on judgement day, but after much deliberation, we settled on one photo as the winner because of its artistry and eye-catching composition:

Sarajevo. Photo by Lana R.

Several other photos were very much in the running and deserve honourable mention – here are five more of our favourites:

Ancient Karaim Cemetery near Chiufut-Kale, Crimea. Photo by vrijaya.

View from a cemetery of the Balkan wars. Thessaloniki, Greece. Photo by lefteris.

Our son walking through Oxbridge Lane Cemetery, Stockton On Tees. Photo by sukie.

This is from the Italian graveyard in Asmara, Eritrea. The Italian community was once pretty strong in the capital, but there is almost no one left now. Photo by chriskean1.

Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, 2009. Photo by kristinrust.

If you haven’t had a chance to look through the other submissions, you can browse the complete cemetery photo gallery here. The group will live on, so please feel free to continue sharing photos and stories of your explorations of cemeteries around the world.

Congratulations to the winner, Lana R., and many thanks to everyone who participated in the contest!

[Top photo: The tomb complex of Ali Isa Khan Niazi, Delhi, India by guido_at_lp]

No Comments