The Darkroom of Angela Geis
I, at least, have never found taking inspiration from these deathly places to be anything like a sinister enterprise. I don’t do the top-forty radio—I pale at the normal. In a grand way, life is very boring.
To see more of Angela’s work or to contact her, visit her website:
Whatever Photography.
Adorned in a black sleeveless T-shirt, skull-and-crossbones earrings, and eyes so cold they could put out a fire, Angela Geis is not your average anything. Legally blind in both eyes because of congenital cataracts, Geis is nevertheless an award-winning photographer. Her muse? Cemeteries—where a still life to her is anything but.
Mikayla: Given your visual impairment, this question is hardly a cliché. How, I’d like to know, did you get your start in photography?
Angela: When I was kid, I was always taking pictures when my family and I went on vacations. When in college, I happened to take a class called “The Art of Psychology.” It was considered a senior-level course, and I was hesitant to sign up; yet it sounded unusual, and I found the prospect exciting. One of the projects was to choose a medium of art – I chose photography – and then contact a professional, in that medium, to be a sort of mentor. I worked with my mentor on a few techniques I had been developing, and the class was a great way to refine a craft in which I had already been dabbling for years.
M: What came next?
A: I volunteered at the Guild for the Blind on Michigan Avenue for a few years. One year they started a gallery that featured work of the visually impaired, and I was asked to enter my stuff into their show. Everyone was really complimentary about my pieces, and I ended up selling everything that night. It was then that I realized that photography could become more than a hobby.
M: Have you felt like you’ve been at a disadvantage because of your blindness—in the art scene, specifically?
A: Photography was somewhat instinctual for me from the beginning. I have never felt like I was lacking anything to pursue photography. I just point and shoot; I never really thought about it. I will just happen to be walking and see something and then take a picture of it. I don’t even realize the details until I get it developed.
M: Is there an instinct driving you to take your photos of cemeteries, mausoleum doors, and a macabre Chicago?
A: We live just by Wriggly Field, and I often walk through a graveyard in Irving Park called Graceland; it is arguably Chicago’s most famous cemetery. I started taking pictures of the mausoleum doors in Graceland because of their high detail; many of them date from the 1800s. Also in Graceland, I came across a magnificent statue draped in white robes, standing ten-feet-tall before a solid black wall. After a little research, I discovered this figure is the Statue of Death: one of the most photographed icons in the country. Chicago legend says that if you rub his nose you’ll see your inevitable demise. He’s so tall I couldn’t reach.
M: What is it about cemeteries that strikes us as beautiful? Does it owe, as you suggest, to a curiosity about our own demise? What do you believe is so aesthetically alluring about death?
A: I hesitate to say this, but everyone has a perversity about them—a dark, mischievous side. I’ve always liked the darker stuff; for example I listen to lot of death metal. Growing up in small-town Ohio did not cater to this element of my personality. I never traveled or did anything. When I met my husband, we moved to Chicago, where I was exposed to many different cultures. With public transportation, and the help of my husband, I was able to hone my dark leniencies into an art form. Of course, “dark” does not mean “evil.”
M: Chicago unleashed the darker you. Tell me more about your mischievous, perverse side.
A: A friend of mind who is blinder than I am – he has only a pinpoint of vision – puts a tiny devil in every photo he takes. I think that’s much like the way that I am. When I express this side through my photography, many think it is evil or sinister. To me, however, cemeteries are the most peaceful and serene places. It is so amazing to think about the time and effort people took to create and embellish mausoleum doors two hundred years ago. Death was an occasion for art and expression, and I tried to capture this when I began photographing doors and headstones. That is why I refuse to digitally edit or manufacture my stuff. I show what is there.
M: And what about when white orbs or other bizarre obstructions appear in the processed photo? Are these, should we say, spirits?
A: There is a story behind the photograph “Charred,” which is one of the pieces you just alluded to. This mausoleum is pure white when you see it in person, but, regardless of how the picture is taken, it always appears black or burnt. The person buried in there was a bridge architect from the nineteenth century. In 1883, a train was riding over one of his Ohio bridges, and it collapsed—the train fell straight to the water below and burst into flames. Charles Collins, the architect, couldn’t handle living with the notion that his bridge killed over one-hundred people, so he committed suicide. The burnt or charred white stones reflect the deaths of those passengers that drove him to take his own life. And behind him is a large memorial of all the people who perished in the crash. That is said to be the locale of a lot of hauntings; white orbs can usually be found in photographs taken there.
