Most religious traditions speak of spirits which protect both persons and places: Angels, daemons, landvættir, spirit guides, yakshas, etc.  In the Roman world they were called Genii, and in the Greek, the female forms were called Nymphs.  And these later two spirits are the focus of this project.  But as with many endeavors, they do not end as they started…

I grew up in Rockport and spent my formative years wandering the coast and inlands of Cape Ann.  But following college in 1998, I found myself on the West Coast for the next 15 year. And like any good Prodigal Son who is worth his salt, I eventually returned home.  Upon my return, though, I was struck by many things, the greatest differences of which was the changes in the environment.  Although raised here, and visiting repeatedly, there was something about coming home that reset my eyes.  The colors, textures, and sky and clouds all looked strikingly different.  The ocean, coastline, forests looked new.  As a Psychologist, I am well aware of how perception can shift.  But as a Photographer, the reset was striking, and I wanted to explore this visual discrepancy further.

So logically, I started taking photographs, trying to capture what I was seeing anew, but only with partial success. I then proceed further to conduct analyses of the colors of images to determine if it was the essential hues that were drawing my attention. And while the swatches of color would be cool to paint the trim, shutters and siding of a house in as the combinations were complementary, still, I was not there. The essence was still escaping me. So, I kept experimenting and thinking about what it was that I was trying to express.  Over a period, I came to the realization that I may be taking a wrong approach to my visualizations.  It eventually dawned on me that I was not seeking a visual per se, but more about an essence, something more ephemeral, less easily “captured.”  I wanted, as strange as it seems, to seek to rather make images of the “spirit” of that place.  And at this realization, Spirits of the Place, was born.

I recalled at this juncture reading in college about Genii Locorum, the Roman guardian spirits that protected sacred groves and altars. So, I put down my camera, and as I am wont to do periodically, took a big detour.  I started reading up on Classic mythology, which in turn naturally led in turn to the Greek myths.  And subsequently, I connected this theme to the parallel motif of the Nymphs, the semi-divine spirits that were known to inhabit and protect specific locations or land types (i.e., seashores, groves, mountains, etc.).  I was onto something here.  From there it was a natural leap to the literature of the Romantics, and from there to the artist who painted their own visions of these stories: Waterhouse, Poynter, Marcel-Benonneau, Hassan, et. al.  And it was here, at this nexus, despite the circuitous route, this project, Genni Locorum: Spirits of the Place, took its full form in my mind.

My goal is to create images of locations, but instead of capturing an image, as spirits cannot be contained, I choose to create photographs of the scenes that first drew my attention.  And using the  inspiration of the painters before me, I am seeking to imbue these scenes with the human-spirit forms.  I hope to photograph these Nymphs, these guardians and protectors, but for our age, and location. And not to be so bold, to echo Shakespeare when he penned…

And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name…