Jasper Goodall
50 x 75 cm
Further images
The midsummer full moon casts its pale light over the skeletal remains of a deceased oak.
Twilight's Path
'Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path
Against the pilgrim, borne in heedless hum'
- William Collins (1721-1759), Ode to Evening.
Once in a while (helped by a bit of planning) everything comes together and you take a photograph that feels really satisfying. However much one reads about artists/photographers trying and failing, taking many shots to end up with that one that works, it's hard to remember. Just keep showing up, keep doing what you do, it won't always work out, but sometimes things flow and something special can come through.
- Jasper Goodall
The perception of the landscape is not a one way journey, we embellish places with imagination, memory, culture and spirituality. This understanding is central to Goodall's work as he seeks to imbue the physical spaces that he photographs with palpable atmosphere. His work is more fairytale than documentary as the viewer is transported into an eerie netherworld - a portrayal of reality that we are not used to seeing. After all: the night is when we dream - it is a wilderness unto itself. At night in a dark wood, one steps beyond the familiar trappings of human life and there is a powerful re-activation of childhood fears and wild imaginings; there is something almost regressive in the experience. Indeed, in folk and fairytale, the dark woods are often considered a metaphor for the unconscious mind; an internal wilderness populated with perils, terrors and half seen entities. However, in this space of diminished rationality there is perhaps, the potential of a proximity and a reconnection with a long lost sacredness.