Sleep Now, Quiet Forest

“Sleep now,
The misty touch of green,
The leafy eaves,
The tender moss,
The trees,
The summer dusk gleams in gold.

You sleep now,
You sleep now,
You sleep now,
And rest.

You sleep now,
You sleep now,
You sleep now,
And rest.

Soft changing light,
New shadows
Under beams,
White flowers close
And wait for night.

You sleep now,
You sleep now,
You sleep now,
And rest.

You sleep now,
And rest.”

[ Sleep Now, Quiet Forest - Todesbonden ]

Badde Salighes, Sardinian for "valley of willows", is a very dear place to me. It was originally Welsh engineer Benjamin Piercy’s Sardinian estate, which featured a 19th Century mansion and an English-style garden, which was totally neglected after his death and eventually turned into an actual forest all around the mansion. When I was a child, my mother would drive me there for picnics, often with friends, and those are among my most beautiful memories of the time. This is one of the reasons why I absolutely wanted to shot there and chose it as the location for my Mother Earth photo.


Despite the whole place having shrunk in time (actually it was me who had grown twice as taller, but that was the perception I had) and the then-run-down mansion having been recently restored, it still kept its magic aura making it a real pleasure to shoot there. My mother and I had real fun experimenting with the kaleidoscope of different light conditions the dusky forest gave us, from warm setting sun rays to soft evenfall light, which gave the photos a wide range of moods. This was also the first time I worked with a tripod. I had just purchased mine and as by the end of the set twilight was settling and light decreasing, I had the perfect occasion for some practice. I could reduce the amount of ISO so that even a photo taken with such poor light as Mother Earth could be sharp and not grainy.

I'm still extremely fond of this photoshoot, both for the meaningfulness of such captions as Mother Earth and the Samhain series and because I could finally incorporate a beautful piece of my childhood into my art. This gave the photos a serene yet somehow nostalgic mood that touches me even after all these years.

Here are also the photos for which I modelled, all taken by my mother. You Made My Heart A Hunter and May You Not Rest were taken with the tripod, so my mother practiced with it too after all!