Camera Urns

For the person who was always there to capture the moment, yet rarely found within the frame, these pieces serve as a quiet acknowledgment. This collection is for the professional who shot weddings or the family member who made sure every birthday and holiday was recorded, as well as the one who worked with film and developed their own prints. They were often the ones standing in the cold or waiting out the hours just to catch a particular light.

There is a specific kind of absence discovered in a family album when the person who made the records is missing from them. Their life was often defined by a patient kind of observation. When they worked with film, they had to be certain of their shot before the shutter clicked, as there were only thirty six frames and no way to check the result immediately. They understood that much of the work was simply waiting, whether it was an hour before dawn for light that only lasted a few minutes, or a morning spent in one spot for a bird that might never come.

The design features a camera engraved directly into the cast aluminum. Each piece is finished in a range of painted colors or a hand-applied enamel that includes hand-detailed silver bands. Every urn is constructed with a threaded screw-top lid and a felt base to ensure stability and protection.

To allow for different ways of remembering, the collection includes full-size urns, sharing urns, and keepsake urns. This variety allows a family to choose one piece or several to hold the remains of the person who gave them their history.

We can also engrave a name and dates directly into the surface of the metal. This two-tone engraving cuts their name and dates into the metal, honoring the person who was most themselves with a lens in front of their eye.

Photography began as an exposure measured in hours rather than fractions of a second. The oldest surviving camera photograph was made by Nicephore Niepce at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes in France, looking out of an upstairs window, between June 4 and July 18 of 1827. He worked on a pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea.

Sunlight strikes the buildings on opposite sides of the courtyard, which suggests an exposure of around eight hours, and later research suggests it may have run for days. For a family, the design on the urn is the person who was always behind it, and every photograph the family has because of them.

Source: Wikipedia, View from the Window at Le Gras

If the person you are remembering was defined by a patient observation or a devotion to catching the perfect light, then this design will serve as a meaningful reflection of who they were. A sibling or a friend might recognize in these details the spirit of the one who ensured their family's history was captured and preserved. The decision of which piece to choose belongs to you and the specific way you hold their memory.

When you look at this design, you may picture them standing in the quiet stillness of a morning, waiting for the light to hit the trees just right.

Our guide to selecting the right size urn