Cleveland photographer and Case Western Reserve instructor Barney Taxel presents what he describes as a “visual symphony,” with four melodic themes of “The Vision,” “The Place,” “The Heart” and “The Journey” in his latest book, The Lake View Cemetery: Photographs from Cleveland’s Historic Landmark (University of Akron Press, 2014).
Accompanying each visual score to illustrate Cleveland’s 285-acre cemetery is an essay by Taxel’s wife and Cleveland author Laura Taxel.
“The photographs display a vast range of subject matter, representing the photographer’s interest in such formal issues as abstraction, scale, texture, illumination and pattern,” writes Tom E. Hinson, curator emeritus of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), in the book’s foreword.
Taxel is an award-winning commercial and fine art photographer and a digital color photography instructor in the Department of Art History and Art.
He discovered Lake View Cemetery, the final resting place for U.S. President James A. Garfield, and Cleveland industrialists, philanthropists and celebrities, shortly after moving from New York City to Cleveland in 1967. He was 18 years old and beginning to study architecture at Case Western Reserve.
“I’ve been photographing the cemetery most of my life,” he said.
Taxel began studying creative photography in 1969 with Nicholas Hlobeczy, who was director of CMA’s photography department at that time and later studied with Minor White (1908-1976), a leading American photographer, photography teacher and a founder and editor of Aperture magazine.
On short walks from campus, Taxel visited Lake View, a popular place for photographers, birdwatchers, joggers and hikers to visit and enjoy the natural beauty, art and architecture as well as bask in its serenity.
“Who cannot love this place?” he asks.
After graduating from CWRU, he made photographs for a Lake View Cemetery advertising campaign in the late 1970s through Edward Howard & Co. and, later, for the Cleveland Bicentennial that focused on the cemetery.
The cemetery’s attraction continued to grip Taxel, who found the place ever-changing, with the light, seasons and dynamic landscaping.
Shortly after completing photographs for the University of Akron Press’ Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens (2000), he envisioned a similar book for the cemetery.
Discovering that no one had done a comprehensive photography book on the cemetery, he began the book in 2000 and photographed Lake View through mid-2014 to complete the project.
Taxel, working with his wife, who did historical research and wrote the accompanying text, completed the book with encouragement and cooperation from the cemetery, including several Lake View Cemetery Foundation grants. Their efforts culminated in the first comprehensive fine art photography monograph about Lake View.
Fifty selected images from the book will be displayed at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport from August 2015 through January 2016.