Haunting photo of solitary figure visiting Fort Snelling Cemetery in a storm goes viral
A haunting photo of a solitary woman visiting Fort Snelling Cemetery during a spring storm struck a chord with readers and has been shared hundreds of times on social media.
The image of the unidentified figure standing among the gravestones was captured by Star Tribune photographer David Joles on Wednesday afternoon, just as a snow storm descended on the Twin Cities.
“Today after work I decided to see what our national cemetery looked like in a snow storm,” Joles wrote on Facebook. “As I had envisioned, Fort Snelling National Cemetery was beautiful, row upon perfect row of graves partially obscured by freshly falling snow.”
He added, “Almost out of nowhere a woman appeared. … I took several photos of the scene before she almost as quickly disappeared. I now regret having not flagged her down and found out her story and the story of her loved one.”
That’s the perfect shot. I met David Joles when he spoke at my Intro to Photo Journalism class at UW-Eau Claire – taught by the David Ford Hansen. Joles worked at the Leader Telegram then. It was great to listen to him talk about the stories of how he captured certain photos, similar to his story about this snowstorm shot. He’s very good at his job.