A cardinal for every life lost: New Jersey man uses photography to memorialize state’s coronavirus deaths

An out-of-work tattoo artist sat in his front yard in Cherry Hill on Wednesday morning with no flesh to ink. From time to time, he scattered bird seed and waited, leaning on a digital camera worth more than many people’s cars. A blue jay made a racket above him, and little wrens hopped about, but he was waiting for a flash of red.

Some think cardinals are visitors from heaven, Rick Fichter said, signs that those we lost are still among us. He often tattoos cardinals on customers, in remembrance of loved ones. When Fichter’s studio, 168 Tattoo in Pennsauken, shut down last month, he decided to use photography, his other passion, to post shots of cardinals online and cheer people up amid the depressing surge of COVID-19 news.

“He’s around. I heard him. That’s a cardinal,” Fichter said. “They make their rounds. There’s two pairs and they are mating right now, and the males are feeding the females.”

Fichter, 48, has taken a photo of a cardinal and posted it on Cardinals for Coronavirus, his Facebook page, for each New Jersey resident who has died of coronavirus. As of Wednesday afternoon, the number of deaths in the state was up to 2,805.

“In the album, every shot matters, just as every human life. You may think sometimes that scrolling through the cardinals, they are the same, but I assure you every shot is different just as every human that was lost is different,” Fichter wrote on the page Wednesday morning.

One cardinal couple, a bright red male and the tawny female, fluttered in and out view, perching on a ladder, then a neighbor’s roof before taking off again. The starlings and sparrows were much bolder, flying up to a display of 13 bird feeders Fichter recently built on the lawn.

All of it unfolded in the unlikeliest of places, a suburban Cape Cod home a few blocks from the Cherry Hill Mall.

“We sort of have a nature sanctuary here,” said Leah Fichter, Rick’s wife.

Two ferrets made an appearance in their windows while Leah sat on the front steps.

Fichter is more accustomed to shooting raptors, including bald eagles at Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River or ospreys at Union Lake in Millville, Cumberland County. He drives hours to locations, and the cameras lined up on his lawn have enormous telephoto lenses. Still, Fichter has taken social distancing seriously, and hasn’t ventured far for his hobby. He has raptors at home anyway — a sharp-shinned hawk that visits and a red-tailed hawk that nests across the street in a vacant lot. Every now and then, the red tail plucks a mourning dove from the yard.

“Yeah, you just see an explosion of feathers,” Fichter said.

Tattoo artists often draw their own designs, called “flash,” which they hang on their shop walls. Some customers come in and pick them out. In light of the coronavirus, Fichter and his crew have been doing a lot more drawing at home, preselling the designs or getting deposits from people who want to come in and get the work done once social distancing protocols have eased. They’ve also been selling coloring books they design on iPads, and lots of gift certificates.

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While some might want to break pandemic rules and get tattooed at home, Fichter said it’s not safe or smart.

“What do you do when that gets out on the internet?” he said.

Since he can only draw so much, Fichter said he’s spent most of his time out front, in a metal chair. Rich Koch, one of his tattoo artists, has even joined in with a camera.

“I could honestly sit here and do this all day,” Fichter said. “In fact, I do."