As a species that navigates (on the whole) by sight more than any other sense, night represents a changed landscape. The familiar is rendered unfamiliar and the unfamiliar takes on an air of danger. In prehistoric times we used fire as a means to punctuate the darkness and protect us from unseen danger, in ancient times songs were sung to give a sense of safety on pitch-black streets, and through it all night has been a home for iniquity, for pleasure, for exclusion.

Even now, in a time of electric/LED lighting, CCTV, automobiles and security patrols, the night is a time for parties, sex, music and breaking out of the chains of day-to-day life. It’s also the time when an unseen army takes over our cities and refreshes them for the coming day - cleaning, preparing food, removing rubbish, transporting goods and people. It is a time when places are both at their most innocent and most foreboding.

Night is a place unto itself, a place that is geographically indistinct and grounded as much in social psychology as it is in time and light. Our experience of night is fundamentally changed by our position and role in society as the same geographical location takes on a new character and sense of place as soon as darkness falls.

(from foreword written for Night Is A Place published by Photobooks Now)