Project 52: Week Five

Shadow.

It was a perfect theme for last week's Project 52.

We spent life in the shadow of many things last week. In the shadow of sickness: I was ill beyond what I've ever experienced, learning at the end of the week I had a bad case of pneumonia. In the shadow of fear: We discovered an extensive moisture and mold problem in our master bedroom, and felt completely overwhelmed at the prospect of taming it. In the shadow of disappointment: People who let you down, children who fall short of expectations that we have set too high, and long-awaited situations that didn't turn out as hoped.

And while I had a million ideas running through my mind for how to bring these emotions to life, how to translate the dark, but meaningful things we were experiencing, I was far too ill to pick up my camera. And so, it stayed away for an entire week.

But last night, as I went through images taken the week before, I came across an arresting photograph I'd taken of both boys inside of an old, abandoned cargo plane. It was taken at the end of Week 4, during our January adventure to the Aerospace Museum (blog coming!). The boys had the pleasure of seeing the inside of the plane, which, save for two windows on either side of the fuselage, was completely dark. They were instantly drawn to the windows and each hovered near them, inspecting what they could see from the nearby light and peering down at the world below. And, even though most of the plane was engulfed in shadows, that one tiny light source allowed me to take a photograph by natural light alone.

And it's beautiful.

My week five's submission: "Relic."

I love the dark, haunting nature of this photograph and how it contrasts with the clean light coming from the window and Evan's hopeful pose as he gazes up at it. I love how he's reaching out of the shadows and toward the light. And I adore the way the window casts a shadow over him, but enough light leaks through to illuminate the cold, industrial beauty of the plane's inner guts. It's a tough old plane. Seen plenty of knocks and kicks and bumps.  But the light peeking through the shadows gave enough glow to see how beautiful she was once was and what great purpose she served.

Shadows are like that. They hide and conceal. They confuse and obscure. They can be haunting and frightening and oppressively sad. But you cannot have shadows without light. By very nature, it is the intersection of light and an obstacle that creates a shadow. No matter how small or weak the source, when you find it, it has the potential to bathe even the toughest, coldest, and most unforgiving scene in beauty.

So go ahead and bring on the shadows, life. I'm a photographer; I'm becoming rather excellent at finding the light.