Melissa Stewart, Edge of night (Student (2019))

I have a strong affinity with horses that can be attributed to my childhood. I am most drawn to their anthropomorphic qualities, namely their dynamic spirit, vulnerability, resilience and emotional capacity. Spending time with horses and photographing them serves as a deep personal meditation that offers allays to my anxiety of the constructed world., At the end of a day spent photographing the horses for a school project, reluctant to leave, I had this desire to capture the horses as the light slowly disappeared. Observing the horses settling in to the darker stages of twilight, the night beckoned, the surroundings were changing around me, intuitively I kept shooting the horses. The serenity and easiness of capturing this moment was alluring, the darkness fell fast and gave a mysterious ambiance to the landscape, now enveloped in shadow, a new frame of reference was created to that of the daylight.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.