Shigemi the spirit & graveyard angel, and editing the macabre & otherworldy

My husband who's a fighter pilot in the military had to go to Texas for a month of training, so the kids and I went with and I was looking forward to it because I have family that lives in Texas and what a great opportunity to spread the inventive wings and document some new places in photos, along with being able to add my family to them. My sister Shigemi is one of the coolest, most down to earth, open-minded women, so when I suggested a graveyard shoot, she fully agreed. She also has an affinity for graveyards, she got married on the grounds of one, Valley of the Temples back home in Hawaii.

Down the street from my brother's house there is a historic graveyard, with towering statues, tombstones the size of a dinner tables and massive crypts. Walking through the graveyard was A TRIP because when I started walking through and looking at some of the graves, all cracked and grated away and worn, some of the dates on them went as far as as 1820 or so. I.e., John Smith, 1850-1910. Jane Doe, 1899-1935. There were dates that even read the meager span of only 1830-1835, :(   Some of those graves had angels carved into them that had started chipping away long ago. The trees in the cemetery seemed to mirror the lifetime of the graves they shaded, they were just as gnarled and old looking. So overall, the place was so fascinating and humbling and had SUCH a deep aura, I didn't even know where to start. 

And of course, statement to myself being; Can I capture the essence and feel and history of this place? Do it justice? Do right by it and the people that had lain here since for so long? I didn't want to make the place look dark, or seedy, or kitschy/cartoonish Halloween creepy. And I didn't want to make my sister look like a demon or a witch. I just wanted...different. Glowing. Otherworldly. Spiritual. Macabre in an ethereal way. Whether I accomplished that I don't know (you the viewer of this blog can tell me with feedback and spill your guts with your own opinion on anything you see on this thing) but I do know that once I had the photos done and some of the panoramas pieced together, I knew exactly how I wanted to edit them to complete the overall look of how the place made me feel. 

Gear used: Canon EOS 60D, 18-135mm 5.6 EF, 10-22mm Wide Angle, 

Canon 85mm EFS. Edited with various uses of textures (grain & canvas), borders and photoshop brushes.

"Visiting". I wanted to make this one look as though she was doing exactly that, walking out of her tombstone.

I liked this one because it almost looks, to me, as if she is saying goodbye and going back to her 'home'. She could disappear as she walked away any second.

A "dark angel" B&W version of first image

I wanted a porcelain, pasty, lifeless look for her here.
Edited with grain on the tombstone and a canvas texture on the background

This was my first attempt ever at Brenizer method. It kiiiinda worked out, it created a pretty good 3D effect with her, but the trees in background are in focus rather than bokeh blur. This is a good example of the cool shit you can really do in Photoshop, from borders to stars, to flares to adding contrast for a bit more of an ominous effect.