Photographer Captures Haunting Image of Lone Woman Visiting Cemetery
David Joles snapped the photo on March 23 at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.
— -- A Minneapolis photographer's stunning image of a mysterious woman visiting a grave site is being shared across the Internet.
David Joles of The Star Tribune said he was leaving work on March 23 when he decided to take his camera out during a snowstorm.
"I saw how hard it was snowing and how beautiful it was," Joles told ABC News. "I thought, 'Wow, I got to get out and experience this and take some photos.' I called my wife and told her that I was going to take some pictures for a little while...I went by and [picked her up] and was driving around."
Joles, 53, said he decided to drive to Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis for the tranquil setting.
"Being that it's so white and the gravestones are all white, I figured maybe there will be a speck of color," he said.
Joles said he parked his car and noticed a gray sedan pulled up behind him, but continued taking photographs.
"I wasn't paying close attention until a woman started walking into the frame near the grave," Joles recalled. "I just wasn't expecting anyone out there on this snowy day. It's not the type of day you'd choose to go and visit someone in the cemetery."
Joles said the mystery woman, who was wearing riding boots and a dark-colored coat, stopped by a gravestone and brushed the snow off the top.
Before she left, Joles was able to photograph the woman.
"I kind of stood there in amazement," Joles said. "On assignment, I would've stopped and talked to her to find out who she was visiting, gotten her name and find out why she was there, but I didn't do that. The next thing I knew, she got into the car and drove away and it was over. I was looking at the images on my camera and realized, 'This is a pretty interesting photograph.'"
Joles sent the picture to paper where it then began circulating Instagram and Facebook, he said.
But many who viewed the ghostly image had the same question: who is this woman in the photograph?
"Do I ever think I'll find out who it is?" Joles said. "I think maybe, if it's meant to be, we'll find each other. It would be kind of cool to know who that person is [and] to know their story, but there's an anonymity to it where people looked at themselves and saw someone they loved."
He added: "That person [in the photo] was no one and yet, she was everyone. Because there was no story of who she was, people could kind of inject their own history in there."
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