A haunting photographer

Since his untimely death in 2012, Simon Marsden isn’t a name you hear quite so often, but a new documentary on the highly influential black & white/infrared photographer should rectify this. Jason Figgis, a documentary film maker originally from Dublin, has put together a fascinating movie tribute called , and I was lucky enough to attend its UK premiere in September. Part documentary/ part meditation/part celebration, the movie gives a real insight into Simon and his motivations; essentially this was a very romantic (in the classical sense) photographer and writer, with an abiding interest in history, myth and, of course, the supernatural. As he told AP back in 1984: ‘It was inevitable, really, that I would be interested in ghosts. I was brought up in a haunted house – Thorpe Hall in Lincolnshire – and my father, my brother and I have all been intrigued by ghost stories. Then I was sent to a Catholic boarding school...’