For well over a century, people have sought to capture the mood, the spirit, of landscapes through photography – and in doing so have brought new eyes to old places (we would use the phrase psychogeographic photography, but that sounds too complicated). Landscape and lens are two long-standing partners in the fields of Folklore and Folk Horror, but for rather different purposes.

Folklorists have tended to spend more time on the human side of the equation, preserving rites and costumes through photography. Location here is usually the backdrop, the setting for a particular ritual or event. An exhibition in 2013, Collective Observations: Folklore and Photography, explored the way in which photographers help keep track of dying rituals and also celebrate vibrant contemporary folk practice.

The Folk Horror Revival movement, for us, excels in looking at the physical landscape not as the backdrop but as the focal point. That includes the ever-changing natural world and the seemingly changeless remains of the past. Genius loci, once the actual protective spirit of a place, is now used generally for that sometimes subtle feeling to grove and graveyard, to a long-deserted home or a stand of rocks on a bleak hillside. However, genii locorum are not always dark. The photography of the FHR may, as with that of Folklore, include an aesthetic beauty or numinous quality which is not horror, but wonder and surprise, as you’ll see below.

Today we’re delighted to welcome Jackie Taylor and Carmit Kordov to greydogtales, so that we can illustrate our theme. We asked these two avid photographers from different parts of the world if they could provide a selection of their pictures – and they did so, with beautiful results. Carmit and Jackie are both very active in the Folk Horror Revival, and we’ll say a little about them at the top of their selections. Both have a talent for finding – and bringing out – the mood of the natural and the constructed world around us.

The image is queen here, so we’ll keep text to a minimum for once.

ALL IMAGES SHOULD BE CLICKABLE FOR A MUCH BETTER VIEW.

Photographs are copyright their respective creators.

JACKIE TAYLOR

Jackie Taylor lives in the west of Ireland. Having twice dropped out of Fine Art degrees she makes no claims to being anything, but she does take a lot of photographs. She attempts to capture the spirit, atmosphere and history inherent in the landscape, with an emphasis on the dark and desolate, the strange and eerie, and the liminal and forgotten places. Jackie doesn’t enjoy selling her work but is happy to give it away to interesting people who ask nicely. Her work has appeared in Wyrd Harvest Press publications and can be found on her Facebook pages, https://www.facebook.com/RedMollyPhotography/ and Winter of Ghosts. She is also an administrator for the Folk Horror Revival Facebook group.

CARMIT KORDOV

Carmit Kordov is a poet and photographer. She is drawn to art and literature that question interpretations of the ordinary. Her work is informed by her background in psychology and her diverse interests in topics such as Hauntology, Psychogeography, Magic Realism, folklore and fairy tales. Her work can be seen on her Facebook page Carmit Kordov Words and Pictures. She is currently working on a collection of poetry and photography. Carmit is an administrator of the Folk Horror Revival Facebook group. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Many thanks to Carmit and Jackie for the chance to display the above photographs.

We fly, we flee, we get out of here. if you want to know what the heck’s on greydogtales next time, you can subscribe free by email in the top left-hand corner. And if you want to help feed John Linwood Grant’s lurchers, you can buy his new collection, ‘A Persistence of Geraniums’, mentioned top right…