Jeff Cagle
i am a freelance news and editorial photographer living in the chicago suburbs.
my portfolio is at jeffcagle.com. You can also find me at instagram.com/jeffcagle
get in touch: jeffrey [dot] cagle [at] gmail
Ask me anything
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I shot my first funeral yesterday.
It’s an odd, uncomfortable feeling to be standing in a cemetery holding a couple of cameras as you wait for a casket to be lowered into the ground. My colleague Brian Powers has been following the ups and downs of a little girl named Kylie who was battling a rare form of brain and spinal cancer. She lost her fight earlier in the week at the age of four.
Kylie’s parents asked Brian if he could be at her wake and funeral to document it for them, and he then asked if I could meet him at the cemetery to help with the final shots. After the crowd of around 100 mourners finished paying their last respects and scattered away, Brian and I were left with the two groundskeepers and the funeral director as Kylie was lowered and sealed into the vault.
It was my first funeral for work, and though likely not my last, I hope to not cover — or have to attend — many like Kylie’s. After collecting his final shot and we walked back to our cars, Brian said, “They shouldn’t have to make caskets that small.”
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Today marks the first day of meteorological spring and even though it still looks and feels a lot like winter while I write this, I have to say that I’m really thankful this past season stayed as mild as it did. I went into it with an immense feeling of dread and uncertainty at the days to come and though it was predictably dark and dreary a lot of the time, I’m happy we didn’t have to deal with single-digit to below-zero wind chills for weeks on end or dig out from under a two-foot layer of snow like last year because I’m not sure I would have gotten out of bed.
I’m also really thankful to be making pictures for a living. There were a lot of times when I was feeling down on myself the past few months and then I’d get an assignment like the one that sent me to a food pantry packed with families, or the one when I saw a small child asleep at a table in a homeless shelter with silverware still in his hands. Another time I found myself getting paid to simply take pictures of the weather and I crossed paths with William, pictured here, who was covered in ash and dust from working his first odd job of the day and had to push his bike through a fresh blanket of snow to the next, and the next.
Moments like these snapped me back to reality and helped me come to terms with the fact that in the grand scheme of things, the issues in my life that had me feeling like I was getting kicked while I was down were pretty fucking petty compared to what a lot of people have to deal with.
That all said, I’m still really happy the dark days of this past winter are coming to a close and everything is getting brighter once again.
