We live in a state of being that is framed by “otherness.” It is not constant, but it is pervasive. My work documents this state in two of its most universal forms.
We all enter a state of otherness every night, when the sun goes down. By its very nature — by its lack of illuminative armor — the night is an ethereal place. Even in our homes, with the lights on, there is little ability to discern what is happening past the window panes. Out there is the realm of mystery.
“Out there” is what I portray in many of my photographs. For me, this otherworldliness is an endless source of possibility. At night, things become other things. The spectrum of concepts and potentials is what gives it allure. There is no “ordinary” in night photography, as the dark is a blank slate upon which I can draw.
Night photography is a nesting place for the fantastical — sometimes intentionally and often blatantly. In fact, the imaginative hides from us in the night. But it should not. We are all exposed to it from an early age. I discovered amazing worlds through books (a shout-out to you, A Wrinkle in Time), while others may have done so through various media (please raise your hand, Luke Skywalker). As we get older, we may lose our belief in the heroes, villains, outsize creatures, and other archetypes that populate these stories, but we never lose our love of the stories themselves. To me, that is worth celebrating in imagery.