Uplighting is when the main light source in a work of art is coming from below the subject. This lighting almost always lends a creepy or outright scary vibe. If you’ve ever shone a torch under your chin while on camp you’ll be well-aware of how different you look. Few (if any?) people are rendered more beautiful with this lighting and this is entirely the point.
Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848-1936) ‘Angel with Flaming Sword’ – Century Illustrated 1893Ksenia Kareva – Tales of the Brothers GrimmThe Old Dark House, poster illustration by Karoly GrozeMystery Nurse Diana DouglasGLOW OF LIGHT by Sawlaram Lakshman Haldankar (1882–1968). Image from Dharmyug Magazine 1956Norman Rockwell for Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1935Hocus Pocus illustrated by Gris GrimlyZofia Stryjenska (1891-1976, Poland), Candle Girl, cardboard, gouacheWILLIAM GROPPER (1897-1977) Torch Singer 1936Adventure Magazine ‘Man of the North (June 15, 1929) cover illustration by William M. ReusswigMunicipal Journal Magazine November 14 1912 (a Seattle magazine about Construction Machinery) cover artAmerican Boy Vintage Magazine July 1936 cover art by M. de V. LeeRolf Armstrong, Nita Naldi, Screenland magazine, Sept. 1924John Butler Yeats (Irish,1839-1922) – A Haunted Chamber candle nightAn Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) by Joseph Wright of Derby (England, 1734–1797)Edmund F. Ward
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project: