My shoes crunch under grassland that is textured, broken reeds, and straw. Treading carefully on the soggy patches that bring you to the pond. This is part of my pre-preparation of what and where I will take photos later at night.
I am cat sitting for two handsome Calico cats. Daaku and Gonzalez. They are well behaved with tension between them over which one gets affection and attention from me first. Half of the deck has been converted into a screened cat enclosure that oversees the backyard and pond. The first night is warm and I sit out immersed listening to the frog chorus. Marina, the house’s owner, said they begin right at the spring equinox after being submerged under the pond for the winter.
I love and respect nature yet I am skeptical if I could survive the outdoors, with its challenges and mysteries. Marina’s three acres however are easy to navigate. In the twilight and first hour of darkness I decide to do so with a blue flashlight and my phone. I am intentional and on a mission. I have been making images with this blue light since this past December. January was when I became purposeful.
I feel I stumbled upon something inside and beyond me yet I do not want to get too high on the idea. I don’t want it to be a gimmick. One day I will not need this blue light but for now it has brought me back into starting a new photographic body of work.
Around 7:20pm I begin my way toward the twisted trees and branches by the reeds. One branch has shaped itself as a looped circle. The sky is still lightish though it will alter shortly. The flashlight marks the circle with a violet shade rather than blue. Yet soon the flashlight will push out a blue glow instead because darkness will descend in the next ten minutes. I balance the phone in one hand and the blue light in the other.
The blue light is cast onto the trees, hitting the bark exposing the age and endurance of cracks and splinters. Unlike in the daylight where the trees seemed weaker, worn and rough with fungi. I had wondered are they slowly dying or in decline? I don’t know much about trees. Perhaps they are just old and have been bidding their time for many years and will be here long after. The thick scales of the bark would not break down without a fight.
The blue is in competition with the sky. Unlike the night, the sky itself dims into a royal blue color. It appears silken and there is a peaceful feeling as I stare upward. This blue sky could absorb everything. Framing this scenery are a cluster of thin branches. I go back and forth photographing the sky as is and trying to see if the blue light adds anything. Besides some flickers it doesn’t do much. I hurry to compose and photograph back and forth and not take for granted either approach because there is only minutes left.
In the daytime on the road where I am staying and its surrounding area, the vibe has been unsettling to me. I can’t figure out why. I google if there were any specific true crime/haunted stories. I find dedicated groups in the Hudson Valley who are into the paranormal so maybe it is not just me. Maybe it will be different when the leaves fill out the trees.
The blue light sometimes throws a subtle color among the trees, branches, bushes, grass and plants. Other points of direction are stark and glaring, as if an ominous glowing object has been hovering waiting to be discovered. However for me I feel a sense of connection and ease even if some of the imagery is eerie that’s what I am enjoying. I don’t feel afraid out here. I feel a sense of authority and control, while at the same time I give myself over to the whims of the universe like I always do with my art.
I had only used this blue light out around my house and down my street yet I needed to translate it outside these confines, to go beyond my own personal space. I’ve been trying to figure out the world from the last few years of the turmoil. Societally, personally, creatively and politically. Covid shifted me existentially. The political chaos swells in ways I predicated. Government dismantlement. The rush to abolish art. The commands to bring about erasure of information and history. It’s a struggle to not feel society is downturned and dimming. However I have to focus, to survive. To find myself with my art and balance out who and what I am in the world.
In the three acre space of twilight and darkness with this blue glow I do not feel lost. Partly I’m operating like a blood hound picking up the scent of blood in the form of following my instincts, which I have always done photographically. It has never let me down.