Daughter of one minister and married to another pastor. The light looks odd; was this a horizontal stone?

The light balance (and shadows in the carved lettering) makes me think this was taken nearing sunset (or at very early sunrise) with the sun low in the sky and behind GravenImageCat, with enough light to diffuse the 'light depth' of the shadow his profile cast on the lower part of the stone, but not enough to avoid showing a distinct difference in light levels between the bottom half and top half of the headstone. It might also be that the headstones in the part of the cemetery where this particular one was set in the ground were more closely packed, and there was another stone before/in front of this one, casting said shadow (and GiC needed to be 'behind' the second stone in order to get close enough to the one pictured for the photograph, thus).

-2Paw.

Sounds legit. I got to wondering because the next image is a ledger stone (set flat into the ground).

It's all good, ami, but thank you for the kudos either way. My forte isn't photography when it comes to visual arts, but my eyes are reasonably good at working out a light/shadow situation (and the slightly-reddish, 'bronzed' look of the brighter upper half, which the headstone's material wouldn't have reflected back light in that tone otherwise) from inference of data (as in, lots and lots of observation of shadows and textures in different situations). If anything, it's a 'that's what it looks like the most like to me' situation, but GiC would know the situation for fact, since he was of course there and would know when during the day and how he took the picture. :)

I had that thought myself about this stone's potential vertical or horizonal position, like your own thought on the matter in comparison to the subsequently-posted stone's picture, which was deliberately placed flat against the head or body space above the filled grave beneath it after the person was interred. The light could be arranged thus on such a stone, but if it was taken from 'above' the dark half of the stone would look very different to what's pictured (in my opinion, anyway); if GiC was standing above such a ledger stone, I mean, the shadow would be much more distinct, and not quite as diffused by the light 'above' the stone, which was the case here, with a 'dimming' due to the shadow, but not a distinct demarcation between the part of it the light was hitting and what would otherwise be a very clear, deep shadow (from the photographer's profile) from the occluding body above it.

I find a stone like this, in the condition it's been maintained in, to the thoroughly fascinating; the burial is two-hundred and seventy-one years old (in fact, it'll be exactly that in about two weeks- 1748-2019, July 8th), and the stone has seen at least one colossal material fault (or two single breaks) but has been repaired and almost all of it retained well enough that even though the breaks in the stone are easy to spot, the inscription is still totally legible, even in the shorthand used three centuries ago for post-Colonial-era stones like this one. I expect Mrs. Rawson and her parson husband would be very happy to know this, were either available to ask. :)

-2Paw.

This stone (and that of her husband, which I also photographed) were once freestanding, but are now mounted horizontally on a table stone. Both this, and the pic of Grindall's stone, were taken around 3pm when the sun hit the table stone at a low angle.