Witching Hour: Imagery from Darkness

Juror: S. Gayle Stevens

© Kathryn Frederick

In October of 2014 we presented A Midnight Eerie. We followed that up last year with A Mystery and a Dream. This year, to continue a variation on a theme, we bring you Witching Hour: Imagery from Darkness.

Historically, the witching hour is that time of night when witches, ghosts, and supernatural beings are thought to be most active. The exact time varies depending on particular beliefs, but is generally considered to be some period of darkness between dusk and dawn. An everyday use of the term might define the witching hour simply as “after dark.”

This is a juried exhibition of photographic imagery that conveys interpretations of the witching hour.

This juried exhibition can be viewed through November 12, 2016.

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Congratulations to the Participating Artists

Award Recipients

Juror’s Award—James Weber: Fear
Director’s Award—Jack Barnosky: Paris Cyrus Flaneur
Honorable Mention—Greg Banks: Fable of Devil John Wright
Honorable Mention—Donna Moore: Into the Light
Honorable Mention—Katy Tuttle: Cover Me

Juror’s Selections

Juror’s Remarks

‘Twas the witching hour and as I lay in my bed,
images from darkness danced in my head.

Specters, spirits, shadows abound.
I knew right away dark dreams would be found.

Visions from Goya, Del Toro, and Bacon
Words of Poe, Shelley, Hawthorne awaken

A gothic fairy tale forms in the recesses of my mind
A darker tale of woe I never will find

400 visions regaling regaling
But only 48 images will be prevailing
And this alone left me wailing

Processes so varied I knew not where to start
So I chose examples that set them apart
Those that exemplified the black art

So the story I mounted began with an owl
Then spirits and darkness and images most foul
It may cause to howl

Happy Witching hour to all
And to all may you sleep tight

With my apologies to Clement Moore.

Juror

S. Gayle Stevens is an award-winning photographer and exhibits extensively nationally and internationally. She has worked in antiquarian photographic processes for over twenty years; her chosen medium is wet plate collodion for its fluidity and individuality. Ms. Stevens received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. She is an educator, speaker, juror, curator and an active member of the photographic community. Named one of the Critical Mass Top Fifty Photographers for 2010 and 2014, she received second place in the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards in 2011 and was named a finalist for the Clarence John Laughlin Award in 2012 and 2014. Her work has been featured in Fraction, Square, Shots, Diffusion, B + W Photography, Vignette and Fuzion magazines and in Inventing Reality, New Orleans Visionary Photography. Christopher James featured her work in the third edition of The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes. Stevens’ work is widely collected and is part of the permanent collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Rockford Museum of Art, the Center for Fine Art Photography, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum among others. She divides her time shooting in Pass Christian, Mississippi and Downers Grove, Illinois, where she resides. Stevens is represented by Tilt Gallery, Catherine Couturier Gallery, and Gallery Kayafas, and Paul Cava.

Please visit Gayle’s website here.