MOONLIGHT
Guy Zabell (1964) grew up in Spain, attending Spanish schools until the age of sixteen before moving to England for further study. Though he later earned a degree in physics, it was during his final years at school—when he first stepped into a darkroom—that his passion for photography truly began. Fascinated by the magic of developing black and white film by hand, Zabell quietly nurtured this creative impulse for years, often sidelined by perfectionism and other professional pursuits.
His latest project Moonlight —photographing ancient Ibicencan fincas by full moonlight—is a poetic culmination of that long-held fascination.
Crisscrossing the island at night by motorbike, he captures the luminous stillness of traditional farmhouses, untouched by artificial light. “Collectively they’ve seen a thousand full moons,” he says, drawn to the idea that these structures carry centuries of silent witness. Using digital photography, Zabell renders nighttime scenes with a painterly softness that defies expectation—images that appear almost like daylight, but with an eerie, timeless quiet. Zabell searches for houses with no outside lights, scouting locations by day and returning at night to work. The result is a body of work that evokes both solitude and history—empty, moonlit sets in which lives have passed and time lingers in the sun-bleached stones.