You'd think these, or some of these, are daytime shots, with the movement of a little sleet or snow captured by a slow exposure. But the white scratches are stars, the regular curved signature representing their movement, or the planet's movement, through space. Once you realise that, you feel a curiously alienated, cosmic chill, but just for a moment, before the thrill of the realisation catches up. The skies that are light on the page were dark when Bill Jackson stalked these strange interzones between land and sea, sleep and consciousness, night and day. The title, 'The Nighthawks', has us studying the windows of caravans, sheds and houses for Hopperesque figures caught within, but there's not a sight of a living soul, save perhaps the alarming scarecrow in the final shot, the 'self portrait'. So we think instead of the nightjar, creepiest of birds, or of the night owl, he who enjoys being abroad when all others are abed. Jackson on the prowl.

You don't need to have done any nocturnal photography to appreciate someone else's work in the same area, but it does help when it comes to writing about it. I know how Jackson felt as he picked his way through the dark. The thrill of transgression, the fear of being challenged, the uncertainty of opening his shutter for an extended period not knowing exactly what was in front of him. Was he wasting his time? Would he uncover something that might not be there in daylight? Would the landscapes of 'The Night Light' and 'The Night River' recall Turner's drenched visions if snapped by day? Would 'The Night House' look like nothing more sinister than the house by the sea ('Watch out for the undertow!') in The World According to Garp, or would it still faintly suggest the architecture of fear, as it does by night, with its hint of the mansion shared by Norman Bates and his mother in Psycho?

Nicholas Royle October 2008