Chrystel Lebas

Photographing in natural environments in twilight, or at dusk, Lebas effectively exploits the mystical and mysterious elements that haunt places on the verge of darkness.

The fragile beauty of Lebas's photographs of these small events belies their alternative function as forensic evidence of a vicious, wild animal kill.


Chrystel Lebas’s work is drawn from her interest in looking at how landscapes contain psychological significance in relation to historical events, legends, fairy tales and our childhood memories and how to communicate these within an image.

She employs photography and the moving image, often pushing the apparatuses to their limits of their functionality to produce images. The works are mainly produced during the twilight hours, or as in the French expression, “entre chien et loup”, translated in English as “between dog and wolf”: the moment when twilight embodies the transition from dog to wolf, when it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between the howling sound coming from the two animals.

The most recent series of photographs from her monograph between dog and wolf, were taken in forests in Germany, Japan, France, Finland and England during the twilight hours:
’We do not have to be long in the woods to experience the always rather anxious impression of 'going deeper and deeper' into a limitless world. Soon, if we do not know where we are going, we no longer know where we are (…)
' Forests, especially, with the mystery of their space prolonged indefinitely beyond the veil of tree-trunks and leaves, space that is veiled for our eyes, but transparent to action, are veritable psychological transcendence.' 

Chrystel Lebas
Abyss, Untitled 1, 2003 C-Print 2.82 x 6.56 ft Edition of 5 + 2 AP

Abyss 2003-06
‘The forest is a fascinating space; one can feel attracted to its grandeur or scared by its depth and darkness. This space of immensity echoes our childhood memories, through fairy-tale or play. Walking through the forest of my childhood in France, after many years, I remembered when we used to build a hut, and slowly the light would disappear, and darkness would surround us. The excitement of being inside this small shelter overturned our fears, and instead we felt protected.’
Recording the forest at night is a nearly impossible task. As for previous works, night 2 and azure, the photographs were taken during twilight, when light is still present outside the confined space of the forest, but darkness has already spread under the trees. Again using long exposures, the panoramic camera records the barely perceptible forms of the forest when night falls, making visible to the viewer's eye what would otherwise be shrouded in darkness. The skylight that breaks through the curtains formed by the trees’ density appears paler, and gives us the sense of an outside world, away from the compact and claustrophobic forest.

Chrystel Lebas
Blue hour, Untitled 3, 2005 C-Print 2.82 x 6.56 ft Edition of 5 + 2 AP

Blue Hour 005-06
These images were taken at twilight in a bluebell forest in Wiltshire, England. Referring to fairy-tales, stories and legends, the place was chosen for its visual impact as well as the symbolism it carries. The bluebells form a vast purple carpet extended to infinity in the forest just emerging from winter.
The decreasing of light allows only a blue ray to become visible, splitting the forest in two horizontal parts in the middle of the frame (referring to the green ray, or the magic hour). The attempt here is to place the viewer in a natural phenomenon lasting one hour, looking at the movement of time barely visible.

The hour long film Blue hour exhibited at the v&a’s ‘Twilight: photography in the magic hour’, records light disappearing gradually in a blue bell forest in Wiltshire. The attempt here is to place the viewer in a contemplative state, able to stay and experience a natural phenomenon lasting one hour, looking at the movement of time barely visible. Blue hour makes us conscious of the time and space we occupy and give us an insight into the nature of time itself. The film allows a moment to unfold in real time; we become conscious that a moment is unbearably long and that our perception of time is both subjective and inaccurate.

These series question our relationship with a familiar landscape, the images are empty of human presence however this emptiness is connected with the notion of possible stories, which might be somewhere behind the picture, a story that might be told although leaving the viewer to experience the inexplicable and a possible feeling of insecurity.