Winter Wonder Woods

There’s something deeply instinctual about the way people react to forests at night. That ancient, primal unease—that classic sense that you’re being watched, that the darkness is hiding things just beyond your sight. I have to admit I felt that when I decided to work on this project. I wanted to show what really you can see in the forest after dark when you add light. That curiosity became the seed of a small, personal photographic project.

Armed with a strobe, tripod, and a sense of cautious wonder, I began returning to a patch of local woodland in Penryn, Cornwall after nightfall. The idea was simple: to illuminate the forest in fragments and see what emerged from the dark. I didn’t want to flatten it with a flood of light; I wanted to reveal it gradually—like peeling back a layer. And as I started to work this way, something unexpected happened. The forest stopped feeling eerie. It became enchanting.