It is the relationship between these bodies and objects, however, that is always more important than the things themselves. And the relationship is most interesting to me when it involves elements from the dark underworld. There is a beautiful tension which arises from juxtaposing something lethal with something erotic or vulnerable, for example, or something spiritual with something that might be considered shameful. By making the shift into the world of the photograph, it becomes possible to experience these paradoxical juxtapositions in a way that our conscious rational minds would not normally allow. Although art may do this for us, art has no responsibility to achieve such a state in us.
Art is just magically there.
When I was a small boy, I remember trying to scare myself by making faces in a mirror in darkened room. But no matter how fiendish the faces, it never quite worked. I always recognized a hint of myself behind the faces. But something else happened instead. After a while I would make a shift into the world of the mirror, and I would hang there transfixed in the tension between the ghostly face and the serene familiarity behind the eyes.