Sep 8, 2024
Larita Shotwell
Hello darkness my old friend: Sarah Lee captures the nights drawing in | Art and design Hello darkness my old friend: Sarah Lee captures the nights drawing in The photographer spent the first week since the clocks went back heralding the start of five darker months in the UK, making photographic notes and observations in London at, and after, twilight
Sarah Lee
Main image:Wed 8 Nov 2023 02.00 EST Last modified on Thu 9 Nov 2023 14.27 EST
Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook How do you approach photographing darkness? That was very much in my mind while approaching this commission. I was asked to do a series of photographic ‘notes’ and observations that documented the first week after the clocks go back. Of course it’s not the darkness I ended up photographing, but the points of light within that darkness Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Everything in photography is about light. All the choices you make technically and compositionally always start and end with light. So it feels right, inevitable even, that a series illustrating the beginning of the dark months should really end up being about the light. Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook I dread these five months of short days, where it’s dark long before 6pm. It’s hard this year not to be even more apprehensive about these months. Darkness makes the landscape of a city more threatening and edgy. This seems to dovetail with the anxiety of the particular age we’re living through. Climate change, war in Ukraine, the horror in the Middle East. These are not sunny times Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Despite the dread and the anxiety, it’s actually an uplifting task to search for the points of light that exist within and are a counterpoint to the shadows. Light is hope, light is joy, light is optimism. And to be honest, the interplay of shadow, light and shade are the things that interest me most as a photographer Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on Facebook The final image is a portrait of the new (very new, he was born last Monday less than two days after the clocks fell back) baby son of one of my dearest friends. He doesn’t yet have a name so can’t be properly captioned here, but I know of few babies more desperately wished for. Meeting him reminded me of the (somewhat overused) Leonard Cohen lyric from Anthem, ‘There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’ Share on Facebook Topics ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJmiqa6vsMOeqqKfnmS0orjLnqmyZ2Jlf3R7zaitaGhoZLWmuMuoZJ2ZoqC7pr%2FSZqSyZZ%2BhsW6y0aKcp5xdqK6zrcdmo56dXZiuscDUq5ysZaSdsm66yKCfratdmb%2Biw8innmahng%3D%3D