Stained glass windows are works of art. They look dull and mundane unless lit from behind, and then they glow like jewels. I’ve seen a few impressive ones during my travels in England and Europe, but the ones in the Recoleta Cemetery were very special – and the sheer number of them was surprising! Many of the mausoleums have stained glass perfectly positioned to catch the light, and they leapt out amidst the time-worn brickwork and stone. I decided that they would be my second photographic focus in the cemetery.

While stained glass windows are beautiful, they can get boring quite quickly if the photographs of them all look the same. To avoid having a series of identical images, I wanted to layer the images so that they had various points of interest. I often had to photograph the stained glass windows through more glass. This enabled me to take angles that would reflect other aspects of the cemetery in the image. I could also cut the reflections out and show what else was inside the tombs, or combine both techniques.

The front doors of the mausoleums were often intricate and interesting within themselves, so I often included them in the images as well.

From traditional to modern, the stained glass windows of the Recoleta Cemetery are all beautiful splashes of colour among the otherwise monotone tombs. It’s worth going there later in the day to catch the evening light, which makes the colours really glow! That said, an overcast sky also produced some great results, so any time is good for a bit of photography.