As the nights lengthen and the year draws to a close, photographer Sarah Lee turns her lens towards the profound beauty of the winter season. Her latest visual project, featured by The Guardian, grapples with a compelling artistic question: how does one truly photograph darkness?
An Epiphany in the Dark
Lee admits to a long-standing fascination with the encroaching dark after the clocks go back and the journey towards the winter solstice begins. "I've always been drawn to photographing the darkness as the winter months draw in," she explains. This year, however, her perspective underwent a significant shift. Amid a world that often feels shrouded in metaphorical darkness, Lee reached a powerful realisation about her own work.
"I realised this year that it is not the darkness I'm photographing, but, rather, the light. Always the light," she states. This insight reframes her entire portfolio, transforming scenes of deep winter into studies of illumination, contrast, and hope.
Guided by the Words of Poets and Painters
Lee's series is thoughtfully punctuated by the final utterances of great artists, which serve as thematic anchors. The collection opens with the resonant line from Leonard Cohen's song 'Anthem': 'There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.' This sentiment perfectly encapsulates her photographic philosophy—seeking out those fractures and openings where brilliance spills through.
The series also references the legendary last words of two creative giants. The English painter J.M.W. Turner is quoted with his poignant, 'Sun is God,' a testament to the divine power of light that Lee chases in the winter sky. Similarly, the German writer Goethe's final plea, 'More light,' echoes the photographer's own quest to find and frame luminosity against the seasonal black.
A Visual Journey Towards the Solstice
The published work, shared on Tuesday 30 December 2025, presents a sequence of captivating images that move beyond mere documentation of winter landscapes. Each photograph becomes an active search for slivers of sunset, the glow of artificial light on frost, or the stark contrast of a bare tree against a twilight sky.
By choosing to focus on the light, Lee's project offers a contemplative and uplifting counter-narrative to the traditional bleakness associated with the year's coldest months. It invites viewers to look anew at the winter world, to see not an absence but a different, more subtle kind of presence. Her work stands as a quiet reminder that even in the deepest dark, the light remains the true subject, waiting to be seen and captured.
