The Reposed

by William K. Greiner

LSU Press, 144 pp., $39.95

What Anne Geddes is to the beginning of life, William K. Greiner is to the end. In his poignant collection of 62 cemetery photographs, the New Orleans native follows in the celebrated footsteps of other artists, like Edward Weston and Clarence John Laughlin, who captured the “romantic and morbid” cities of the dead in southern Louisiana. Thomas Lynch, award-winning author of The Undertaking, writes in the foreword that the fascination with final resting places has always been with us “not because it matters to the dead, but because the dead matter to the living in ways best articulated in the terrible stillness of stone.” Unlike Weston and Laughlin, Greiner works in color, influenced by the images of the great Mississippi-born photographer William Eggleston. Greiner’s funereal portraits are not the grave sites of the well-known and well-to-do, but cemeteries like the one in Hammond, Louisiana, with a Winn-Dixie grocery store looming in the background. From elaborate marble vaults in New Orleans to simple wooden crosses in Slidell, Greiner’s photographs tell stories at once haunting and heartfelt.

This article appears in December 17 • 1999.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US