Above this is Murphy, but you can call him Murph. Not that it will do any good. Like any other cat, he'll just ignore you. He may look like a frightened little kitten (he is hiding in a cabinet during a severe thunderstorm), but he is 13 years old and his medical chart is stamped CAUTION.

In almost 15 years here I've had interesting times. I've been kicked out of one cemetery (Holy Sepulchre) and I've been locked in another cemetery (Evergreen).

Update #2: After being thrown out of Holy Sepulchre for the second time, (see below) my niece offered to lend me her smart glasses so I could take pictures surreptitiously. It then occurred to me that if they ever came up to me again, I could be in the cemetery taking pictures of them as they told me that I couldn't take pictures in the cemetery.

I had heard that Holy Sep didn't allow photography so I decided to take pics there anyway. A caretaker saw me and told me I had to stop. So I went to the manager who told me the Archdiocese of Newark forbids photography at all of its cemeteries with specific exceptions. I told her that was a very un-Christianlike policy for a Catholic cemetery but to no avail. So they told me to leave. Holy Sep then became my pet project and I've taken thousands of pictures there almost every Sunday when no employees were working. So much for their policy at least as far as I was concerned.

Some time after that I was taking photos when a Newark police car started pulling up to me. At first I thought 'Don't tell me they take this no-picture-taking policy this seriously and they're calling the cops on me.' But I was relieved when the officer simply said that they got a report of shots fired in the area and wanted to know if I had seen or hard anything. I hadn't. They left. I went back to taking photos.

UPDATE #1: 14 years of taking photos at Holy Sep after first being thrown out, I was recently thrown out again. But as the Terminator said: "I'll be back."

I got locked in in Evergreen Cemetery on a summer day when the sun was still shining brightly after the 4:45 pm closing time. Walking along the plots taking photos while being blissfully unaware of the time, I suddenly realized that it was 30 minutes after closing. I quick jumped in my car and raced to the gate and saw from several sections away that the gate was already closed. As I contemplated spending the night in my car, I saw a police car inside the gate waiting apparently for me. I guess I wasn't the first person to get caught after hours, because they simply let me out and locked up.

Maybe staying there the night wouldn't have been so bad. After all I had another 2 hours of good sunlight to keep taking pictures not to mention a couple more hours after dawn before they open up to the public.

The past 14 plus years have been a very satisfying and rewarding venture with so many considerate people sending me their thanks for posting photos that I enjoyed taking. I recommend being a volunteer photographer to anyone who ever requested and received photos of a loved one's grave.