Into The Wild Night is a black and white series inspired by conceptualisations of the otherworld, spirit emanations, and altered states. The images draw on classical interpretations of the afterlife such as is seen in Gustave Doré’s illustrations for Dante’s Inferno where he depicts desolate and dark spaces dramatically illuminated by unseen light sources.

The set of instructions (opposite) comes from an old Swedish folk tradition of Årsgång (pronounced ors-gong) translated as Omen Walk. It was traditionally performed at midwinter after a days fasting. At midnight one must walk alone through the dark woods to a specific location, often the village church. During this walk one was said to encounter entities, emanations or manifestations that acted as omens for the coming year. This practice shares similarities with a Psychomanteum which is an enclosed space dimly illuminated with one candle and containing a mirror into which one must gaze after having been awake for many hours. The purpose of a Psychomanteum is to facilitate contact or visions of the spirit world. Both of these practices share ideas like fasting, sleep deprivation, solitude and—most importantly—darkness, to diminish the rational mind and thus gain access to a more visionary state. The lack of light simultaneously removes certainty and energises the imaginary capacity of mind.

Sometimes the sense of an emanation or spirit movement is suggested by the presence of white mist or willo-the-wisp among the trees, at other times the trees themselves act as entities with twisting limbs or gaping mouths. The photographs are borne of fantasy imaginings and reverie. They are conceptions of a dream state or a dream place — an imaginary thinning of the veil between this world and the world of dream or spirit.