I have made many images of cemetery monuments, but rarely one as dependent on color for its meaning as this one. This is the only significant monument in a parched 19th century burial ground riddled with prairie dog burrows. Capped by a broken column symbolizing a life cut short, the monument is draped in a pall. Just as I began to shoot, the cloud cover parted, revealing a patch of sky overhead, streaked by a layer of almost invisible wisps forming a transparent shroud. I shifted my camera position to push the monument into the heart of that sky. Later, while post processing this photograph, I found that the more contrast and saturation I added to the image, the deeper the blue in the sky became. Played against the neutrality of the clouds and the tree, as well as the grim high key lighting on the tan monument, the color of that sky becomes a vivid symbol of eternity, an ideal metaphor to express the character of this haunted place.