52 week Challenge: week 9

Week 9: Artistic: Shadows – The opposite of light is dark, the absence of light is shadow. Interpret this into a masterpiece.

This was quite an interesting assignment and opened up a lot of possibilities. The one constraint I set myself was that I was only going to use natural light, so no flash or lamps to create shadows that weren’t natural.

I had a trip to Philadelphia, and  in the end settled with a fairly classic abstract taken on the steps of the terrace on Liacouras Walk in Temple University. I converted it to a black and white image as I think it works better for contrasting the zigzag lines onto the grey stone steps.

However, last night just as I had returned home from work I caught sight of the shadows cast from a couple of our German Erzgebirge ornaments being cast by the final rays of the setting sun through the window. These are delightful little wooden sun and moon characters and I thought their shadows were lovely, as well as relevant to the time of day.

In this case I left the image as full color as I think the dark wooden background of the shelf makes the shadows seem warmer, as it partially reflects the sun into a blown out highlight.

~Richard