Special Holiday Edition

For some time, I have been reading about Olivewood Cemetery. This historic cemetery in Houston sixth ward has been recently resurrected after years of neglect and is home to the rumors of paranormal activity. Houston's first black alderman, Richard Brock, purchased the six-acres of land in 1875, which reportedly had been formerly used for slave burials. In 1877, he opened it as a cemetery for black Methodists, making it one of the first known graveyards for blacks inside Houston's city limits. The cemetery would become the final resting place for the rich and influential, as well as the poor members of society. Burials continued here until the 1960s when it was abandoned and left at the mercy of the elements.

In 2003, a nonprofit organization by the name of the Descendants of Olivewood was established to take ownership of the grounds and restore and protect its historical significance. After doing away with the overgrowth and helping clean and restore the various grave markers, they hoped to one day re-open the grounds as a park where people can come for the peace and quiet and reflect on the cemetery's history. They have done a lot of work but much more work is needed.

Last week I visited the cemetery for the first time. It has many interesting graves, but one grave caught my eye, that of: Lawrence Cook, Texas, Private, 165 Depot Brigade, November 16^th, 1936. Why did this particular grave catch my eye; because of the newly planted American flag at the base of the tombstone. None of the other graves in the cemetery seemed to have had any attention in some time. Why did someone plant a flag on this particular grave?

I did a little research on the Texas 165 Depot Brigade and leaned that it was an integrated brigade that fought in France during World War II. Not a lot is written about the brigade, but it does really seem unusual for the time.

My visit and subsequent research provided me with two pieces of information that I did not know: Houston had a black alderman in 1870, which was very shortly after the Civil War and Texas had one of the first integrated brigades in the US Army. So much for the stereo-types about Texas.

I wanted a photo of the flag and the tombstone and tried various approaches. I finally tried a slap-zoom while using a flash to freeze the flag in the image. This is a technique that Craig Tanner recently described in one of his videos.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 300mm f/8, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/10^th of a second on a tripod with a SB-800 with a snoot aimed at flag and triggered by Nikon CLS.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, clarity, added vegnetting and cropped image to move flag off center.