Several weeks ago, I was honoured to be included in a very special evening at Swanmore Hall in the
Stephen Leacock Museum in Orillia which was a wonderful mixture of photography and speculative literature.
It was entitled
Look. Magic (A Photography Exhibit by
Roger Czerneda) and
Here Be Dragons (An evening of fantasy with
Julie Czerneda and friends) The friends were
Adrienne Kress,
Anne Bishop and me.
One of the things I loved about the evening (apart from the great company, the interesting readings and talks, and getting some unique insights into Roger's photography) was the way Roger had incorporated some of the authors' works into the photography exhibit.
The piece Roger had created inspired by
Haunted Hamilton, comes from Chapter Nine covering Burkholder Cemetery, which had been established by Jacob Burkholder and his family shortly after they settled in the Hamilton Mountain area in 1794.
In that chapter I talk about the spectral lights which had been reported as being seen there, hovering above the Burkholder Church and then moving slowly into the graveyard as a premonition to a villager's death.
And no, Roger didn't capture a "real" ghost in this shot - it was brilliantly staged to give a creepy feel to a local graveyard in the Orillia area. And even if you look really hard, you still might not be able to see which phenomenal top-selling science fiction writer posed as the ghost in this photo.
I have a copy of Roger's beautiful photograph hanging in my den. I love how it beautifully captures the essence of the eeriness of my book.
Here is the quote that was run with the photo for the exhibit.
"Many photographs and videos have been taken at the cemetery, each
photographer anxious to try to document evidence of the legendary
lights. But the main thing that all who visit this historic site are
witness to are the quiet graves, some anonymous stones, and others with
eerily prophetic messages for the living— all reminders that one day
those looking upon the stones will, too, inevitably pass into death." - Page 81, Haunted Hamilton, Mark Leslie, Dundurn Press, Aug 2012
You can purchase the photo from
Roger's website for as little as $35 for the matted version. Just sayin'.
