Moonlight

Growing up in coastal Georgia, many of my nights were spent exploring the water, marshes, woods and beaches. As a kid my concept of the night did not go far beyond exploring new areas with my friends and finding new trouble to get in to. As I grew as an artist and then more specifically as a photographer, my appreciation for my surroundings began to grow. To me, day light reveals the obvious beauty of the coastal landscape while the night evokes a stronger feeling of my environment both past and present.

While the night may bring about associations of stillness and quiet for many people, for me the night brings about a kind of movement and restlessness that drives me to explore and produce. Between the constant movements of life in the water to the ceaseless presence of the Deep South’s dark history, the night is never without movement.

When I went to photograph sculptor and performing artist Emily Hadland’s work, the goal was to create a feeling of weightlessness and mystique. It was not until after the fact that the correlations between the night and water became so prominent. The water provided a dark and mysterious environment that makes the viewer feel immediately alone and disoriented. From her masked identity, to the ambiguous shape of the garment, she resembles a creature that could have originated from the hole above which she is hovering. The hopeful rays of moonlight that seem to cascade over her body leave the viewer to decide the outcome of what almost seems to be a power struggle between good and evil.