When my wife and I stopped by this cemetery the other week, it was a gorgeous October morning, the wind blowing tons of leaves from the trees. I tried to capture a couple intentional shots of the leaves flying through the air, because they were really brilliant and many, but they really didn’t come out in these pictures.
As in my Cemetery Dance post, I love the atmosphere of this cemetery. Loved the different kinds of gravestones we found. Found a handful being crowded out by trees. Found one that looked exactly like a specter had appeared on its stone. My wife showed me the grave of the famous nature photographer, Rich Buzzelli. My wife knew him since they were kids—and he’d actually been the photographer at our wedding. “People” really were not his subject, but she’d managed to convince him to do it, and he’d done an outstanding job. He was such a nice guy. Usually that word can be meaningless, but for Rich, it really described the man as I met him. A few years after our wedding, he was struck and killed by lightning in mid-conversation with his girlfriend, on the slopes of Pikes Peak, in Colorado Springs.
Fairview Cemetery is on the west side of Colorado Springs, on 1000 S. 26th Street. Once again, I got lost in the imaginings of the people beneath my feet, like Maggie (b. 1915) and Jimmie Heath (b. 1914), died 1933.
Related articles
- Cemetery Dance (fpdorchak.wordpress.com)
- Cemetery tour (chasingbluebirds.typepad.com)
- Lone Fir Cemetery, Portland, Oregon (SwittersB Takes a Walk) (swittersb.wordpress.com)
- Twilight tour of Saratoga’s Greenridge Cemetery (timesunion.com)
My wife and I also knew and loved Rich Buzzelli (“Buzz” to us). We met him on the side of
a road near Moab in 1990. We found an arch that day, and we found a friend, too. Buzz was also our wedding photographer when we got married on the edge of Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah. He worked for free and hiked in his own equipment.
It’s 2017 now, and when I’m out in the middle of nowhere alone, I still occasionally hear myself holler “BUZZ!” as loud as I can. I really miss that guy.
Thank you for sharing that memory, John! He was such a cool guy, good energy about him. The other day I was taking pictures (was going to saying “shooting,” but not sure how that would have come across!) out in Garden of the Gods, had gone to the Visitor’s Center for a particular shot I wanted to get, and saw a picture of Rich there. Brought back the memories—then here’s your post! Synchronicity. And maybe he’s checking in on us, to say “Hi!”
Thanks, again, John, for sharing your memory with us. He was a good man, and I also do still think of him….