Oct 31, 2014

Old Hillside Cemetery: Part 2

One of the earliest photo sets I shot of Medicine Hat was of the Old Hillside Cemetery. It's one of the city's first graveyards, and has been maintained as a park since 1945. What this means is that all of the gravestones found here are at least 70 years old now, with many of them dating back to the late 1800s when Medicine Hat was founded.


I wanted to return to the site to capture the graveyard in greater detail with the autumn colours as a backdrop. Despite this being the final resting place for some of the Hat's earliest residents, it's actually far more beautiful than it is creepy. I love the textures of the old rusting gates, the bold fonts on the gravestones, and the overall scattered layout and spacing of the cemetery. It's a really fascinating place to explore and ironically it brings the history of the area to life.