Oh Lin, I have just come back from Denmark where I finally found the strength to scatter Ben’s ashes into the sea. It was a moving moment for me. Imagining that someone like your brother would have been there with me, would have left a deep scar on me. I am glad you and Deborah went back the next day.
You have shared some of the memorial photos before and I would the project from the minute I saw it. I hope you will make a book one day, because I want one. And the one of your dad would make the perfect opener.
Susanne what an emotional moment that must have been for you. It sounds like you needed that time to come to the right place both mentally and physically before being able to scatter Bens ashes, which was the case for Dad when Mum died. Now I like to think of them both being in a place they loved, amongst trees - and that's the case for Ben now, forever bounding along a Danish beach and into the waves.🐾❤️
As for the photos, thank you so much, I seem to have a growing list of 'books to do'! I have my Beachy Head project which is focussed around the memorials of suicides in such a beautiful landscape. I'm hoping to get back there in September and April to round that work off. This one is a separate series that's grown over the years - hopefully both will end up in a book or zine. Spookily enough I was thinking about the same thing the other day - Dad's image to open and then an image of the tree to round it off. I must be on the right track! 😊
Oh my gosh; this beautiful photo essay brought me to tears. Your taking photos of memorials is such a beautiful way to honor and bear witness to the dead. The images are so compelling, as is your writing.
I'm sorry about the loss of your mom and dad. So heartbreaking. I love the idea of your mom's and dad's ashes spread at the tree. You write with such love and honor the dead with such grace and beauty. I got lost in your photos of memorials, as well as your beautiful words.
I am so glad that the day after your brother poured your dad's ashes out, you and Deborah went the next day to your dad's ashes to spread them and honor the person he was. I try not to be a judgemental person, and I don't know your brother or the family dynamic, but I can see how his action hurt you. And perhaps he was in denial or was filled with another kind of emotion. I don't know.
This is a poignant, beautiful piece, Lin, and it deserves to be widely read. Sending you love and hugs. ❤
Thank you so much for your kind words Beth - to so many people memorials are such an important part of honouring a life and when I see them and the obvious love with which they're made I connect at once through my own experiences. I know there would be no bad intentions towards the family from my brother - perhaps just an awkwardness in the moment because of its importance. It's just an experience that left a big imprint on me. Thank you again for your wishes and support.🙏🏻😊
Oh Lin, this is one of the most touching pieces I've read and you have delivered it with such honesty, grace and photographical poetry. From the personal perspective, there is so much here. I found myself impacted by each section, carefully and delicately scattered, like the flowers themselves. Thank you also for the beautiful reminder of why I'm so drawn to the memorial at the street corner just around from my house. It's a symbol of reverence and pain in the middle of a busy intersection that feels like time slows. Thank you for this touching post and I know it will serve everyone who reads it.
Thank you so much for your lovely and very generous words Juliette, I’m so pleased this piece resonated with you. I love the way you describe the memorial near your home and how it slows time down in all of the busy-ness of the road…for me that’s what memorials do, give us the time to reflect on a life and also perhaps contemplate how we live our own. We pass them every day and yet sometimes forget the impact that they can have on us if we pay them that attention.
What a deeply moving post, Lin. And I deeply appreciate and respect that you shared your own personal journey within. Your photos are powerful because they represent so much human emotion. They also happen to be beautiful. Finally, it's quite interesting to consider the reason we raise viewfinder to eye when we do. What series of emotions, personal history, likes and dislikes, chemical reactions in our brain, etc., lead us to take the images we do? Thank you for this.
Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful words Tom, sharing a personal experience does make me feel a touch vulnerable but it’s also quite healing. It was certainly quite a reaction when I first saw the picture that started me thinking. If it is the feeling, the connection we have to a moment that compels us to make a photograph, then that feeling of need to honour someone that had been reinforced by the scattering of Dads ashes years previously comes back when I see a memorial and deepens the need to photograph it…if that makes sense.
Nature and trees in particular for me are another example – I see a magnificent tree and I just have to photograph it. What’s that down to? Perhaps from when I was small and loved to sit under them, or it could be those enzymes they give off…I love that there’s still so much wonder and mystery in life.
This is such a beautiful refection, Lin. I so appreciate how you take time to honor each of the memorials that you come across. It’s lovely how you thoughtfully photograph them, and seeing them together in this set was quite moving. I felt disbelief and shock from story about your brother unceremoniously dumping your dad’s ashes was heart, and was heartened to know that you and Deborah went back to scatter them properly. Thank you for sharing this lovely post 🙏
Thanks so much for your kind and compassionate words, Todd. It’s that connection that we develop as photographers, slowing down and mindfully making a photograph, that I feel honours the people that each memorial celebrates…spending time with them, recognising them. And yes, each of these images lives in different folders on my hard drive, but when I started pulling them all together it felt quite a body of work (there are many more) especially as so many of them I could remember the moment and my feelings at that time.
A meaningful and beautifully written post, with quiet photos that illustrate the mindset behind what you describe. Your interest in subjects and places around the theme of remembering and honoring loved ones doesn't surprise me at all though. It's one of the few things people create (and that remain for at least a good while) that transcend the futile and the relatively unimportant stuff we tend to make a fuss about in our everyday existence. That's why many photographers, myself included, share your interest in them, in many different ways. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you so much Vincent, that’s such a thoughtful response. I’m glad the words and the images resonated. I think you’re right, these small acts of remembrance cut through so much of the noise and busy-ness we surround ourselves with, and you make a good point that this is why some photographers are drawn towards these tributes. For me it was my personal experiences that perhaps deepened a pull to photograph them, that was already there.
This is a beautifully reverent piece. There is such tenderness in the way you bear witness -- not only to your own parents, but to strangers whose names you'll never know, whose lives you still honor simply because they were. That alone tells me everything about the depth of your heart.
Your story about your mum's tree, and then your dad's ashes...I felt that in my bones. The shock of that moment, the coldness of it, the way it imprinted itself on you -- and then the healing of returning the next day with Deborah to scatter his ashes with love. That act of reclamation moved me deeply.
What struck me most is how you've turned that experience into a lifelong practice of honoring others. The way you stop for every memorial, the way you read the words, the way you photograph them as if to say, "I see you. You mattered." It's nearly unheard of in a world that rushes past grief, past memory, past the Sacredness of a life.
Your line about how each memorial becomes a moment of connection -- a slowing of time -- is so true. These small tributes, whether a bench plaque or a bouquet tied to a railing, are love made visible. And your images carry that love forward.
I was especially moved by the photo of your dad planting the tree for your mum. The way a single forgotten image can open a door to an entire era of feeling...that's the power of memory, and the power of photography when it's rooted in devotion rather than perfection.
Thank you for honoring the dead so beautifully. Thank you for reminding us that remembrance -- even of strangers -- is an act of love that ripples far beyond the moment. Your work is a blessing. Thanks for sharing it with us. XO
Thank you so much Danielle, I'm really moved by what you've written here - how in tune you are to my work. Your description of the photos as a way of saying "I see you. You mattered." is such a true way of putting it. And yes I wholeheartedly agree with you about photography's ability to open up our memory and the feelings linked to that time, in an instant. We've all experienced loss at some point in our lives and I just feel that these public displays of grief and remembrance, through their very personal memorials, is something that should be given the respect that we would hope our own loved one's memorials receive.
I'll finish with something that came to mind, written by a famous outdoor writer in the UK called Alfred Wainwright who walked and documented all of the fells of our Lake District. He asked as a last wish for his remains to be scattered at his favourite place -
"All I ask for, at the end, is a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn, on Haystacks... And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me."
Deborah and I have walked Innominate Tarn many many times and each one I think of him, and the knowledge that his and likely many others ashes are also scattered there.
Thank you for this piece. There is something about memorials out in the world of nature and daily life that resonate, while visiting loved ones' remains in cemeteries never has for me. Thank you for this wonderful essay. Your images connect us all.
Thanks so much Cathleen - yes I agree, it's those memorials we encounter when we're out and about that seem to carry more strength in their meaning and are stronger reminders of our own losses as well as a reminder of our mortality.
Lin, I cannot tell you how beautiful I find it that you photograph memorials of people you don’t even know. You are right. Those places deserve respect and honor.
Thanks so much Manuela. We all experience loss and I just feel we would all want our loved ones to have that same respect paid to them, so I'm glad that came across in the work for you.🙏🏻😊
The very fact that you choose to photograph memorials reveals so much about your heart and what kind of person you are. It's very moving to read this essay and look at the memorial photos. It's wonderful that you do this. Honoring the lives of loved ones of people you don't even know is a beautiful and kind thing to do.
It's not unsurprising that you were deeply impacted by the way your father's ashes were dumped by that tree. Something shifts deep within us when both our parents have died. Then, on top of that, that hurtful experience. You're a sensitive soul, so of course that bothered you deeply and impacted your photography.
I will never forget when Princess Diana died. Her life and her death impacted the world. I also remember all those memorials that were set up. Whenever I see memorials set up to honor someone after death, not just famous people, I feel lifted up. It helps me keep believing in the goodness of most people. Whenever you take a photo of a memorial, you are putting goodness out into the world. That is no small thing.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Nancy, I know I'm not alone in being drawn to memorials, I see others stop to read them, yet I also see many who just pass them by. I guess we're all drawn by different things and the memorial thread is one of mine based on my lived experience.
I do agree with you that these memorials, as well as causing me to honour and contemplate their lives, symbolise a celebration of that person and the goodness in so many people out there. It’s very generous of you to say that my images spread that goodness further… I do hope that’s the case!
Thank you - I think there's a certain poignancy around them that reminds us of our own losses and that draws people towards them. Thanks for stopping by.
Fortunately, before his death, my husband Vic told our sons and me where he wanted his ashes scattered--near an old oak tree on a knoll near a group of oaks. Your experience brings me back to that time. I once walked to that cairn every day, but haven't been well and haven't visited Vic's tree and the cairn my sons erected there for a year. One or both of my sons can drive me to this cairn on the trails if I'm too weak to walk. Soon! Thank you for the inspiration, Lin, and your personal story of the complications of love and loss. With love from across the sea.
Hello Elaine - it's so lovely to hear from you and thank you for your kind words. I remember you documenting those walks to Vic's cairn, I know how much it means to you to be able to visit so I'm really sorry you've not been able to get there for a while. Yes definitely get your sons to drive you - being amongst the oaks and near to Vic's cairn will lift your spirits and hopefully bring you some of that beautiful tree energy we all need. Hopefully those Monarch will also arrive very soon for you to start your nursery again.
I do hope you start to feel better soon - sending much love, light and healing to you across that currently very balmy sea. 💚😊🌳🙏🏻
Dear Lin, I really loved this post. There’s so much beauty in your words, and the heartfelt images. Your story about both of your parents’ passings and the way you chose to honor their lives was very touching. I agree with you about the importance of saying something to pay hommage to a life lived and honor our own loss. Thank you for your essay. Sending light and peace. 🤍🤍🤍
Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful words Anne, I'm so pleased this resonated with you. I do agree with you about the importance of saying something, however small, to honour a life and acknowledge our feelings. Sending light back to you.😊
Oh Lin, I have just come back from Denmark where I finally found the strength to scatter Ben’s ashes into the sea. It was a moving moment for me. Imagining that someone like your brother would have been there with me, would have left a deep scar on me. I am glad you and Deborah went back the next day.
You have shared some of the memorial photos before and I would the project from the minute I saw it. I hope you will make a book one day, because I want one. And the one of your dad would make the perfect opener.
Thank you for sharing!
Susanne what an emotional moment that must have been for you. It sounds like you needed that time to come to the right place both mentally and physically before being able to scatter Bens ashes, which was the case for Dad when Mum died. Now I like to think of them both being in a place they loved, amongst trees - and that's the case for Ben now, forever bounding along a Danish beach and into the waves.🐾❤️
As for the photos, thank you so much, I seem to have a growing list of 'books to do'! I have my Beachy Head project which is focussed around the memorials of suicides in such a beautiful landscape. I'm hoping to get back there in September and April to round that work off. This one is a separate series that's grown over the years - hopefully both will end up in a book or zine. Spookily enough I was thinking about the same thing the other day - Dad's image to open and then an image of the tree to round it off. I must be on the right track! 😊
Hi Lin,
Oh my gosh; this beautiful photo essay brought me to tears. Your taking photos of memorials is such a beautiful way to honor and bear witness to the dead. The images are so compelling, as is your writing.
I'm sorry about the loss of your mom and dad. So heartbreaking. I love the idea of your mom's and dad's ashes spread at the tree. You write with such love and honor the dead with such grace and beauty. I got lost in your photos of memorials, as well as your beautiful words.
I am so glad that the day after your brother poured your dad's ashes out, you and Deborah went the next day to your dad's ashes to spread them and honor the person he was. I try not to be a judgemental person, and I don't know your brother or the family dynamic, but I can see how his action hurt you. And perhaps he was in denial or was filled with another kind of emotion. I don't know.
This is a poignant, beautiful piece, Lin, and it deserves to be widely read. Sending you love and hugs. ❤
Thank you so much for your kind words Beth - to so many people memorials are such an important part of honouring a life and when I see them and the obvious love with which they're made I connect at once through my own experiences. I know there would be no bad intentions towards the family from my brother - perhaps just an awkwardness in the moment because of its importance. It's just an experience that left a big imprint on me. Thank you again for your wishes and support.🙏🏻😊
Oh Lin, this is one of the most touching pieces I've read and you have delivered it with such honesty, grace and photographical poetry. From the personal perspective, there is so much here. I found myself impacted by each section, carefully and delicately scattered, like the flowers themselves. Thank you also for the beautiful reminder of why I'm so drawn to the memorial at the street corner just around from my house. It's a symbol of reverence and pain in the middle of a busy intersection that feels like time slows. Thank you for this touching post and I know it will serve everyone who reads it.
Thank you so much for your lovely and very generous words Juliette, I’m so pleased this piece resonated with you. I love the way you describe the memorial near your home and how it slows time down in all of the busy-ness of the road…for me that’s what memorials do, give us the time to reflect on a life and also perhaps contemplate how we live our own. We pass them every day and yet sometimes forget the impact that they can have on us if we pay them that attention.
That is so true Lin. And I’ll be thinking of this differently when I pass them now. Thank you.
What a deeply moving post, Lin. And I deeply appreciate and respect that you shared your own personal journey within. Your photos are powerful because they represent so much human emotion. They also happen to be beautiful. Finally, it's quite interesting to consider the reason we raise viewfinder to eye when we do. What series of emotions, personal history, likes and dislikes, chemical reactions in our brain, etc., lead us to take the images we do? Thank you for this.
Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful words Tom, sharing a personal experience does make me feel a touch vulnerable but it’s also quite healing. It was certainly quite a reaction when I first saw the picture that started me thinking. If it is the feeling, the connection we have to a moment that compels us to make a photograph, then that feeling of need to honour someone that had been reinforced by the scattering of Dads ashes years previously comes back when I see a memorial and deepens the need to photograph it…if that makes sense.
Nature and trees in particular for me are another example – I see a magnificent tree and I just have to photograph it. What’s that down to? Perhaps from when I was small and loved to sit under them, or it could be those enzymes they give off…I love that there’s still so much wonder and mystery in life.
Such an honest & personal post. Thanks for sharing. 🖤🙏📷
Thanks so much for reading Benjamin.
This is such a beautiful refection, Lin. I so appreciate how you take time to honor each of the memorials that you come across. It’s lovely how you thoughtfully photograph them, and seeing them together in this set was quite moving. I felt disbelief and shock from story about your brother unceremoniously dumping your dad’s ashes was heart, and was heartened to know that you and Deborah went back to scatter them properly. Thank you for sharing this lovely post 🙏
Thanks so much for your kind and compassionate words, Todd. It’s that connection that we develop as photographers, slowing down and mindfully making a photograph, that I feel honours the people that each memorial celebrates…spending time with them, recognising them. And yes, each of these images lives in different folders on my hard drive, but when I started pulling them all together it felt quite a body of work (there are many more) especially as so many of them I could remember the moment and my feelings at that time.
A meaningful and beautifully written post, with quiet photos that illustrate the mindset behind what you describe. Your interest in subjects and places around the theme of remembering and honoring loved ones doesn't surprise me at all though. It's one of the few things people create (and that remain for at least a good while) that transcend the futile and the relatively unimportant stuff we tend to make a fuss about in our everyday existence. That's why many photographers, myself included, share your interest in them, in many different ways. Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you so much Vincent, that’s such a thoughtful response. I’m glad the words and the images resonated. I think you’re right, these small acts of remembrance cut through so much of the noise and busy-ness we surround ourselves with, and you make a good point that this is why some photographers are drawn towards these tributes. For me it was my personal experiences that perhaps deepened a pull to photograph them, that was already there.
Lin,
This is a beautifully reverent piece. There is such tenderness in the way you bear witness -- not only to your own parents, but to strangers whose names you'll never know, whose lives you still honor simply because they were. That alone tells me everything about the depth of your heart.
Your story about your mum's tree, and then your dad's ashes...I felt that in my bones. The shock of that moment, the coldness of it, the way it imprinted itself on you -- and then the healing of returning the next day with Deborah to scatter his ashes with love. That act of reclamation moved me deeply.
What struck me most is how you've turned that experience into a lifelong practice of honoring others. The way you stop for every memorial, the way you read the words, the way you photograph them as if to say, "I see you. You mattered." It's nearly unheard of in a world that rushes past grief, past memory, past the Sacredness of a life.
Your line about how each memorial becomes a moment of connection -- a slowing of time -- is so true. These small tributes, whether a bench plaque or a bouquet tied to a railing, are love made visible. And your images carry that love forward.
I was especially moved by the photo of your dad planting the tree for your mum. The way a single forgotten image can open a door to an entire era of feeling...that's the power of memory, and the power of photography when it's rooted in devotion rather than perfection.
Thank you for honoring the dead so beautifully. Thank you for reminding us that remembrance -- even of strangers -- is an act of love that ripples far beyond the moment. Your work is a blessing. Thanks for sharing it with us. XO
Thank you so much Danielle, I'm really moved by what you've written here - how in tune you are to my work. Your description of the photos as a way of saying "I see you. You mattered." is such a true way of putting it. And yes I wholeheartedly agree with you about photography's ability to open up our memory and the feelings linked to that time, in an instant. We've all experienced loss at some point in our lives and I just feel that these public displays of grief and remembrance, through their very personal memorials, is something that should be given the respect that we would hope our own loved one's memorials receive.
I'll finish with something that came to mind, written by a famous outdoor writer in the UK called Alfred Wainwright who walked and documented all of the fells of our Lake District. He asked as a last wish for his remains to be scattered at his favourite place -
"All I ask for, at the end, is a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn, on Haystacks... And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me."
Deborah and I have walked Innominate Tarn many many times and each one I think of him, and the knowledge that his and likely many others ashes are also scattered there.
Thank you for this piece. There is something about memorials out in the world of nature and daily life that resonate, while visiting loved ones' remains in cemeteries never has for me. Thank you for this wonderful essay. Your images connect us all.
Thanks so much Cathleen - yes I agree, it's those memorials we encounter when we're out and about that seem to carry more strength in their meaning and are stronger reminders of our own losses as well as a reminder of our mortality.
Lin, I cannot tell you how beautiful I find it that you photograph memorials of people you don’t even know. You are right. Those places deserve respect and honor.
Thank you for doing that!!
Thanks so much Manuela. We all experience loss and I just feel we would all want our loved ones to have that same respect paid to them, so I'm glad that came across in the work for you.🙏🏻😊
Hi Lin,
The very fact that you choose to photograph memorials reveals so much about your heart and what kind of person you are. It's very moving to read this essay and look at the memorial photos. It's wonderful that you do this. Honoring the lives of loved ones of people you don't even know is a beautiful and kind thing to do.
It's not unsurprising that you were deeply impacted by the way your father's ashes were dumped by that tree. Something shifts deep within us when both our parents have died. Then, on top of that, that hurtful experience. You're a sensitive soul, so of course that bothered you deeply and impacted your photography.
I will never forget when Princess Diana died. Her life and her death impacted the world. I also remember all those memorials that were set up. Whenever I see memorials set up to honor someone after death, not just famous people, I feel lifted up. It helps me keep believing in the goodness of most people. Whenever you take a photo of a memorial, you are putting goodness out into the world. That is no small thing.
Thank you for your beautiful essay and photos.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Nancy, I know I'm not alone in being drawn to memorials, I see others stop to read them, yet I also see many who just pass them by. I guess we're all drawn by different things and the memorial thread is one of mine based on my lived experience.
I do agree with you that these memorials, as well as causing me to honour and contemplate their lives, symbolise a celebration of that person and the goodness in so many people out there. It’s very generous of you to say that my images spread that goodness further… I do hope that’s the case!
This is a beautiful piece of work. Thank you for creating and sharing it.
Thank you so much Michael - I'm glad it resonated with you.
Moving text and photos. I waz always compelled to stop by those trees and benches in the UK and ponder for a moment
Thank you - I think there's a certain poignancy around them that reminds us of our own losses and that draws people towards them. Thanks for stopping by.
Fortunately, before his death, my husband Vic told our sons and me where he wanted his ashes scattered--near an old oak tree on a knoll near a group of oaks. Your experience brings me back to that time. I once walked to that cairn every day, but haven't been well and haven't visited Vic's tree and the cairn my sons erected there for a year. One or both of my sons can drive me to this cairn on the trails if I'm too weak to walk. Soon! Thank you for the inspiration, Lin, and your personal story of the complications of love and loss. With love from across the sea.
Hello Elaine - it's so lovely to hear from you and thank you for your kind words. I remember you documenting those walks to Vic's cairn, I know how much it means to you to be able to visit so I'm really sorry you've not been able to get there for a while. Yes definitely get your sons to drive you - being amongst the oaks and near to Vic's cairn will lift your spirits and hopefully bring you some of that beautiful tree energy we all need. Hopefully those Monarch will also arrive very soon for you to start your nursery again.
I do hope you start to feel better soon - sending much love, light and healing to you across that currently very balmy sea. 💚😊🌳🙏🏻
There is strong tree energy near my house, too, but norhing beats the power of a memorial tree.
You are so right there Elaine!
Dear Lin, I really loved this post. There’s so much beauty in your words, and the heartfelt images. Your story about both of your parents’ passings and the way you chose to honor their lives was very touching. I agree with you about the importance of saying something to pay hommage to a life lived and honor our own loss. Thank you for your essay. Sending light and peace. 🤍🤍🤍
Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful words Anne, I'm so pleased this resonated with you. I do agree with you about the importance of saying something, however small, to honour a life and acknowledge our feelings. Sending light back to you.😊
Such an Insightful read.Empathy is such a wonderful human trait.
Cheers!
Thanks so much Kenneth, I'm pleased that came through in in my essay.