SHERKIN ISLAND AT NIGHT

“Dreams rise in the darkness and catch fire from the mirage of moving light. What happens on the screen isn’t quite real; it leaves open a vague cloudy space…” — Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

This series is a continuation of my longterm work on Sherkin Island, but now I photograph it at night. All images are made after the last ferry leaves. At that moment the island changes. People go, movement stops, and the place becomes quiet and empty. It feels like the island exists in a different way, one that is usually hidden.

I started making these photos after feeling tired of photography. After more than ten years of working with images, I lost interest in the way photography often works today. Too much editing, too much control, too many expectations. This project became a way to step away from that. I use a simple camera, shoot in black and white, often in auto mode, with high ISO. The images are rough and not “perfect”. I don’t spend time editing them. The process is slow and meditative. I walk, stop, look, and take pictures without thinking too much.

Most of the light in these images comes from the moon, from a few street lamps, or sometimes from passing car headlights. Because of this, things appear and disappear. Familiar places become strange. Houses, roads, and objects lose their normal meaning. Light and darkness break things apart, and it becomes harder to understand what you are looking at.

I also think about photographers like Daido Moriyama, where images are direct and raw. I took a lot from Hiroshi Sugimoto, especially the idea of blur and the conceptual approach to the image. I was largely inspired by Shilo Group, as example their series about Timoshenko’s escape.

This series is not about showing the island. It is about being inside it at a time when almost no one else is there.

For the final degree show, the photographs will be printed as large scale black and white posters and placed in different locations across the Island.