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Photographers Capture a Rural Community Haunted by an Age Old Legend

By Jenna Garrett on September 25, 2013

Photo: Lara Shipley

Drawn to the dense backwoods of the Ozark Hills, two photographers heard tales of a mysterious light that appears on chance nights in a region known as the Devil’s Promenade. Locals call it the Spook Light, and for many this unexplained phenomenon symbolizes a desire for redemption and the fear of slipping into darkness. — Lara Shipley and Antone Dolezal

Hailing from the American Midwest, photographers Lara Shipley and Antone Dolezal dive headlong into the rolling “hills and hollars” of southern Missouri where myth and legend still survive. Devil’s Promenade explores beyond the ghostly apparition for which the place has become famous and weaves a tale of the people who inhabit the region. Captured with a gaze that is both compassionate and acute, the images are raw with grit and homeliness. The feral feeling throughout makes it possible to believe in haunted souls and explore a world where evening prayers are still murmured and the woods runs wild and black into the night.

Photo: Antone Dolezal