“In the midst of darkness, light persists.” These are the words of Mahatma Gandhi, famously reflecting on hope and truth. The same faith in the perseverance of light defines nocturnal photography. Capturing landscapes by night has long been a test of patience for photographers. Paul Martin (b. 1864) was ridiculed by passers-by as he captured photographs of London by night in 1895. His book London by Gaslight proved that making photographs by night was possible, but not for the impatient. The photographers we feature here, previously featured in print editions of Aesthetica Magazine, experiment with long exposure, DIY lighting rigs and ultraviolet light to create nocturnal scenes which capture the stillness of nature by night.
Frank Relle
When Frank Relle first encountered a swamp, he felt an internal shift. “I went in once, and something happened; I changed, and then I kept going back.” In the years since, Relle has continued to explore Louisiana by water, spending nights camping and photographing with a lighting system rigged to his flatboat. The resulting images capture cypresses in bayous and lakes. These are otherworldly, towering trees which can live as long as 1,000 years. “I’m alone in the boat, but not alone in any real sense,” Relle explains. In fact, he is surrounded by life: alligators, cormorants, deer, frogs, herons, raccoons and osprey. “The swamp at two in the morning is one of the loudest places I have ever been.” For Relle, these are places to find inner peace, but are not without challenge: “Oil canals cut through. The old growth is mostly gone. The coast is washing away… To love this place now is to love something that is still here and also being lost.”
Cody Cobb
“There is a hidden luminescence in the wilderness of the American West,” writes Cody Cobb (b. 1984), a photographer and keen explorer who is based in Nevada. “A strange fluorescence occurs when certain minerals and organic materials are subjected to ultraviolet radiation. This spectrum of light is invisible to humans.” Cobb’s Spectral series captures a parallel world after dark. On first glance, the shots look to be altered with clever filters. In fact, they are rooted in science. Each landscape glows with fiery orange or ice blue. Cobb’s technique involves long exposures and an ultraviolet light, taking his camera to areas where collapsed lava tubes can be found, or high up where lichens thrive. “The eerie light emitted from within these once familiar surfaces transforms the mundane into something extraterrestrial,” he notes. It’s refreshing to look at the Earth in this way: to zoom in on textures and reveal concealed colours.
Harold Ross
Harold Ross’s love for photography was sparked whilst standing next to his father in a darkroom. “I felt a sense of wonder as I watched his images magically appear in the developing tray,” he recollects. The Night series, in which trees and clearings are bathed in a bright white glow, evokes a similar feeling of enchantment. The work addresses Ross’s childhood fear of the dark, which emerged during camping trips in the mountains of southern New Mexico. “The process I use is commonly known as ‘painting with light,’ but I think of it more as ‘sculpting,’” Ross explains. It’s a technique honed over 30 years of practice, which involves lengthy time exposures. “The camera is stationary and I’m in motion – applying the light, choosing what to show and what to obscure. I shape the scene in a way that takes it beyond the limits of our everyday vision. What you see in my photographs cannot exist in nature, nor in one moment in time.”
haroldrossfineart.com | @haroldross_sculptingwithlight
Marie Dreezen
Antwerp-based photographer Marie Dreezen explores “forgotten places” in Belgium, documenting empty beaches, abandoned vacation destinations and tourist hotspots made empty by nightfall. The lens-based artist manipulates these scenes with light and colour, to build locations that feel simultaneously strange yet familiar. It’s a process that treads the line between fiction and the real world. Dreezen’s work is filled with a sense of solitude, documenting abandoned holiday homes in isolated landscapes. The 2021 series The Bluest of Days was made in a short period of isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic. The images, drenched in blue, echo the loneliness experienced by countless people across the world during government-mandated lockdowns. There is an eerie feeling to the pictures, as rolling sand dunes and sweeping beaches, places so often overrun with people, appear untouched by humans.
mariedreezen.com | @mariedreezen
Jasper Goodall
In 2014, Jasper Goodall (b. 1973) left a career in illustration to study Psychosynthesis: a field of existential psychology focused on exploring deeper centres of identity, with the goal of reaching true “self-realisation.” In this period of “creative dormancy” Goodall became interested in journeys – specifically those which focus on the world after dark. He notes: “I’m interested in ideas around being lost – themes of solitude, loneliness and retreat. In our frenetic world, the night forest seems to be the very opposite of our busy, media-filled days. It is a place in which, for a few short hours, no human voice can be heard. The environment is temporarily returned to the wild.” In the velvety images of the Twilight’s Path series, Goodall creates an ode to the evening. Quietude is embraced, whilst twisting branches and fallen leaves become new forms of currency: gold, silver and bronze shine against the depths of black.
jaspergoodall.com | @jaspergoodall
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Words: Sophie Bullivant
Image Credits:
1. Frank Relle, Berard. Image courtesy of the artist.
2. Frank Relle, Valsin, Image courtesy of the artist.
3. Cody Cobb, from Spectral (2021). Grasses and lichens fluoresce at nearly 12,000 ft above sea level in the rugged and exposed White Mountains of California.
4. Cody Cobb, from Spectral, (2022). Pillar of obsidian lit with UV light in California’s Owens Valley.
5. Harold Ross, Night 22. Image courtesy of the artist.
6. Marie Dreezen, The Bluest of Days (2021). Image courtesy of the artist.
7. Marie Dreezen, The Bluest of Days (2021). Image courtesy of the artist.
8. Jasper Goodall, Burnt Place 02: Pines (2019). Courtesy of the artist.
