Giles Corey - pressed to death - a photo on Flickriver

Giles was one of the people accused in the Salem hysteria that resulted in trials and hangings in 1692. The superstition of the local community boiled over into cruel punishment and injustice when some young girls began to accuse people of being witches.

He refused to plead guilty or innocent in his trial and was subjected to a torture that was supposed to encourage a plea... he had a board placed on him and was pressed to death over a few days by having stones packed on the board. He died on September 19, 1692. He was over 80 years old. Aside from his contempt of the process, a motive for his refusal to plead was that his farm would go to the state if he was found guilty. He wanted his sons to inherited it. He is said to have called for more weight when he was asked to plea during his torture and those were his last words.

His third wife, Martha was hanged for witchcraft on the 22nd of September, 1692.

Legend has it that Giles Corey's ghost appears in Salem before a major catastrophe. A figure was seen walking in the graveyard before the Great Salem fire of 1914.

A Wikipedia article gives a good account of all of this.

There are several countries in the world where people are still being accused, persecuted and killed for being suspected witches. A newspaper article, as recently as 2008, reports of a witch killing in South Africa.

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Assignment: PCA58 – Superstition
Deadline: March 15, 2009
Image Tag: pca58
From: gfpeck

“Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational - but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?” - Judith Viorst

Mission: As this week contains the second of three Friday the 13ths that occur this year (the next one is in November), I want to see how you capture the essence of superstitions (good, bad, preventative, other). Here is a great resource for ideas: Superstitions: old wives tales, folklore, bizarre beliefs, taboos, omens, lucky & unlucky things.

WIT
Well I guess I went dark on this one... I had originally intended to take a lighter view of this but other than photographing a Dreamcatcher I was left with little inspiration come the last day of the assignment.

So this afternoon I took a drive to Salem - the weather has perked up a little and it was a balmy 60F here.

There were a fair number of people at the old graveyard in Salem. My image of the Suzannah Martin memorial is the most viewed in my stream and I have wanted for some time to put a set together of other images from the memorial.

My Salem Witches set is here if you are interested - along with some more commentary on some of the stones.

The Salem Witch hysteria a fascinating subject and is it a testament to superstition and cruelty.

The light was very harsh and this is probably not the best of the series that I took this afternoon, but the story is very strong. It makes you wonder how far you would be prepared to go for your convictions.

The stones are grey but I wanted to strengthen the contrast between the stone and the flowers (this memorial is often decorated in memory of the victims) which have withered since being left there.

I used Photoshop elements to do some levels adjustments and added a grayscale layer and selectively erased the grayscale over the stem and flower to restore the color. I then increased the saturation a little to bring out the red and yellow a little more.

Then I spent a couple of hours reading and writing about each of the stones I included in my set.

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Taken in: United States / Massachusetts / Salem / Downtown (show map)

Taken on: March 15, 2009

Tags:

salem witch trials

witch

salem ma

massachusetts

superstition

witch hunts

hanging

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Giles Corey

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Sets appears in: • PCA • Graves and memorials

Groups appears in: • Photography Critique Assignments

Camera: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, 50mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT
Lens:	50.0 mm
Aperture:	f/5.6
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/400)
Focal Length:	50mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Macintosh
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