Monsters onder het bed, opgegeten worden door een enorme slang, ontsnapte seriemoordenaars en enge clowns. De angst van elk klein kind. De 35-jarige horrorfotograaf Joshua Hoffine ensceneert zijn foto’s als films. Met sets, kostuums, mistmachines, special effects, make-up etc. In zijn serie “After Dark, My Sweet” komen oude nachtmerries van toen je nog een kind was weer tot leven.

I am interested in the psychology of fear.

We are born with certain inherent and instinctual fears, such as fear of the dark, fear of lurking danger, and the fear of being eaten.  As we grow older, these fears lose their intensity, and are slowly shuffled away into our Unconscious.

Horror, as an art form, draws its strength from the Unconscious.

Horror photography is able to present these abstract and forgotten fears in literal terms.

I stage my photo-shoots like small movies, with sets, costumes, elaborate props, fog machines, and special effects make-up.  Everything is acted out live in front of the camera.  I use friends and family members, including my own daughters, as actors and crew.

I try to present the images within the visual grammar of a child.  I want the viewer to empathize with the child, to share their point of view, to feel their sense of vulnerability.  The images stress danger, and depict an amoral world where purity and innocence are under constant threat.  Like fairy tales, these photographs function as cautionary metaphors about the potential dangers of the world.

I believe that the Horror story is ultimately concerned with the imminence and randomness of death, and the implication that there is no certainty to existence.  The experience of Horror resides in this confrontation with uncertainty.  Horror tells us that our belief in security is delusional, and that the monsters are all around us.

Joshua Hoffine

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Dit interview door Vice is tevens leuk om te lezen.