I have a pretty good track record (I think) of trying to look past the obvious in a photograph and teasing out the not-so-obvious, or in some cases, the slightly ridiculous. I’ve talked about beauty in darkness, anticipation for winter’s icy fingers, the Little Mermaid instead of the ocean.
Have you ever seen a movie called “There Will Be Blood” starring Mr. Daniel Day-Lewis? If you have, you’ll understand the inherent creepiness in trying to overlay a beautiful picture with Psycho-shower-scene-esque music. The opposite would be true in this case. If I tried to talk about the importance of night sounds to a prey species or how darkness can really be friendly and inviting and even secure, you’d take one look at this picture and think I had a screw loose.
This photo is scary. It encompasses everything about darkness that scares us. Ever see a movie called “Blair Witch Project”? Well, I certainly didn’t, because I managed to get the jist from a few simple frames of video: darkness, trees, and a hollow, wan battery-powered light curving a dim arc into the darkness. Kind of like lighting a match to melt a glacier. The woods at night are terrifying, unless you are some kind of forest ranger who knows the woods so well that darkness enhances their vision. The security of no one being able to see you at night works in reverse as the creepy-crawly-ax-murderers are secure and unseen in the darkness too. Darkness is spooky. Darkness is unknown.
- linds (awesome tile layer)
-me (survivor of the night)
by Vanessa Lofvenholm
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