I’m Melissa. Welcome.

The images you’ll find here on my website, in my book and in the print shop are part of my “Haven” light study collection. The collection began as a project to honor the light at the end of day. The deeply beautiful way light calls from windows and blinks on in streetlights amid the hour of dusk.

For two years I ventured through the urban areas of greater Seattle during rainy season. I walked with one camera and one lens. The air shifted each night in its final breaths of light, growing colder, warning of impending darkness. The din of the city kept pace, in preparation for this threshold hour. At dusk, a rumbling background of engine noise rose to replace the exchange of crosstalk as person after person hushed and hurried on to the next part of their night.

They felt it. The hour. The tension. As daylight ebbed and shadows grew, dusk pressed in. Relentless. Predictable. Primal.

We were born to sense this hour.

When a somber pall claims hold of the day and dampness lifts the smell of oil from asphalt and the ground beneath us becomes harder to see, we head for the light.

This project celebrates the universal signals of dusk.