The artist		Coolbawn House, Co. Wexford, Ireland

Since Halloween has crept up on us we thought it might be appropriate to contact Simon Marsden for this issue of the Bridgeman Buzz. We hope we don’t scare you too much!

Hello Simon. How did you come to choose BAL to represent your work?                                      
I have known Harriett Bridgeman for many years as a personal friend and she asked me whether I would be willing to fill a gap in her collection regarding modern pictures of the supernatural and gothic imagery in general. I agreed as I felt it was a perfect opportunity for my much smaller library to reach more clients. But more especially because the overall quality, content, and reputation of the Bridgeman Collection is something I feel very happy for my pictures to be associated with.

Your extraordinarily powerful black and white photography has a supernatural quality. What has drawn you to specialising in this?
I spent my childhood in a large haunted manor house in a remote part of the English countryside. My father had an extensive library of books and manuscripts on the occult and on some winter evenings would tell us four children - I was the youngest - ghost stories by the fire before we went to bed.

Long Stories of Ghosts and Witches © the Estate of Arthur Rackham / Chris Beetles Gallery		Gargoyle, Das Reiche Tor, Bamberg, Germany

The house was haunted by the ghost of a 16th century Spanish Princess known as the Green Lady, who had stabbed herself to death in the park, and there was a portrait of her in a green dress hanging in the hall. This made her very real to me at a vulnerable age. Fate decreed I was the one who slept in the haunted room and this also left a lasting impression on me.

My father was a very keen amateur photographer with a darkroom in the house, so photography was also part of my life then. Over the years I have come to believe that as a result of the real fear I felt as a sensitive, imaginative child raised in a haunted house, I am simply trying to exorcise these ongoing fears through the art of photography, and this is the strength and aura of mystery that haunts these images. In other words I have transferred my fear to the prints.

What technique do you use to receive this ‘unreal’ effect?
I use old Nikkormatt cameras (35mm) with usually a 24mm lens. Most of the exterior shots are on Kodak High Speed Infrared film, the interior shots on Kodak Tri-X or I spend a lot of time in the darkroom as printing is my passion. Some of the exposures in the enlarger are very long - 15 to 20 minutes - and for every good print I throw away maybe 8-10 sheets of paper. I do not use the digital format - for me the computer has no soul.