Tips on Photographing Headstones

Use Bright Sunlight

• Bright sunlight is your best bet for lighting when photographing headstones. The best time to get this kind of light is at mid-day, or when the sun is at a 10 to 30 degree angle to your subject. East-facing headstones are an exception to this, however, as it is better to photograph them in the mid to late morning. Headstones that are in the ground are best photographed when the sun is low in the sky.

Tilt Your Camera

• If you are photographing a headstone that is at an angle because it is damaged or it has sunk tilt your camera to correct for this slant . You should be able to get a photo of the stone standing straight up by following this tip, even if it is extremely slanted.

Use a Mirror to Reflect Light

• When headstones are underneath trees, or caught in the shadows of other objects, you can use a mirror to redirect light onto them. This mirror should not be as big as the headstone, however. If you don't have a mirror that you can use you can use, try either the sun reflector from your car windshield or a piece of cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil. If you need to use a mirror you may also need to do your photographing with a partner, or use a tripod to hold your camera.

Under-Expose

• If you are using a digital camera, then under-exposing your photos might be helpful. This is especially true if you are photographing headstones that are very light in color. Under exposing your photos with a digital camera will allow you to lighten them using image-editing software.

Eye Level

• To reduce unwanted shadows and distortion photograph headstones so that they are at your own eye level. This also lets more light into the inscribed letters on a headstone, which helps to improve the legibility of inscriptions.

Wet the Stone

• Cleaning headstones with brushes and household cleaners can cause unseen damage to a headstone or its inscription. However, if you use water in a spray bottle to wet a headstone you can make its inscription more legible since the water will darken the stone. This is especially useful when trying to photograph headstones that are made out of visibly porous stone.