Spotted Photo Theme January: Finding beauty in the Shadows
Loss and possession, death and life are one,
Hilaire Belloc
There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.
If you look through your own photo archive, you might spot photos where you have a great big shadow across something or someone that you wanted to capture. That’s not good, right? But what if you wanted to photograph the shadow itself? Then you’d be spot on for this month’s Spotted Photo Theme I think. But no matter how you capture the shadow, on purpose or by mistake, your photos are welcome in this blog challenge.
I’m glad I did not go with my initial thought of “shadows and light” for our theme in January, because now that I have been thinking about the theme a bit more and had a look through my photos, I think those are two very different things. I mean I know they are, but they might not always belong together you know? Light could be a totally other theme later on. For example, you can photograph “light” without having great big shadows in your photography. Although it’s harder to photograph shadows without a good light source, I don’t think you need the light source to be prominent in your photo as you capture an interesting shadow.
Sometimes the most interesting thing is the shadow.
January’s photo theme : shadow
I have many photos tagged with “light play” or “shadow”, which made searching for my favorites easy enough. Otherwise looking through years worth of digital photos can take quite a bit of time, time you might not have. For me though, I feel it’s worth it. Seeing these again has been great, and this entire theme makes me want to take a lot more photos this year. I hope my selection will inspire you as well, to look at what’s in front of you, to document what you see, to seek out beauty in the everyday – and to find new and interesting themes in your own photography.
For me, I love looking through my photo archive (even though it’s a rabbit hole of mental memory loops)!
Just imagine if they were all in boxes, stacked on top of each other at the back of your wardrobe? Without the search function we’d be lost. Some of mine are still in there but I really want to digitize them and then make them all into photo books one by one, some day. That’s what I’d like to do anyway.
But for today, I’m sharing some of my most favorite photos of shadows. I noticed that I have blogged all of these somewhere on the blog over the years, so for context I shall just link you to the original post and let you click through to some hidden gems – where you’ll find (most of the time) even more of my photography.
Sunshine in winter creates the most amazing, stark shadows on the white ground. And sun in the winter is such an unexpected, happy treat too.
It is only through shadows that one comes to know the light.
— St. Catherine of Siena
And how about this cute shadow:
I’ve obviously always collected shadows (maybe because I dwell in the shadows half of the time), or at least as long as I’ve been able to photograph digitally. With these photos I feature what I call my “everyday photography”, documenting my life as I see it, for myself and for the blog. At home. Out walking. Doing nothing special. Non of these have been taken on a birthday celebration or during travels abroad, because I didn’t even get to those folders this time.
These photos are just the once that came up on Flickr when I searched for the word shadow. I either tagged or titled them something with “shadow”, and most of them (like I already mentioned) were used on the blog somewhere. They’re all favorites of mine, and would look great in a photography portfolio if I had one.
Still, I think this photo might be my all time favorite and the one that started my interest in capturing shadows even without the item that is actually casting it:
Garden chair and table in my parent’s garden, casting the most lacy and beautiful shadow ever.
The shadows are only the darkest when the light is at its brightest.
— Glenn Beck
Shadows in black and white photos are magnificent as well. The contrast of those shadows are almost as high as the trees themselves here:
This glass broke several years ago, but I have the photo to remember it by:
Shadows can be dramatic and obscuring or gentle whispers of sunshine through the window in your own living room.
And a photo from 2020 just so you don’t think I haven’t taken any photos at all in these past years:
I could go on, and I will in another post (or more), because now that I have started to excavate half a life’s worth of photos, why not? Last but not least, a red lace creating another layer by casting a shadow on my mixed media art quilt:
Another idea is to take a self portrait (or a portrait of someone else) of a person peeking through “in the shadows”, but for me, I found so many of those that I’ve taken through the years that I decided to make a separate post of those. Stay tuned!
Please don’t be shy, come out of the shadows!
Leave me a comment below, and if you share your own spotted photo theme on the subject of “shadows” send me the link to your blog post, or post it in the comments below, and I will come visit you of course. You do not need a specific number of photos, but link back to me would be nice. Use the graphic if you can. Take care and keep taking photos of your own beautiful, magical life. Next Spotted Photo Theme I will share on the 15th of February: pairs. xo
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I posted today, and used the theme that you decided wasn’t for you, Shadows and Light. :-)
I love your pictures, especially the ones of nature (snow, trees), but I also really like the ones of the crochet blanket and the outside table.
Thanks J, for joining in. I really enjoyed your photos.
Your photos of shadows are beautiful! I love the one of the snowpeople in your window. I clicked over to the post so I could see them in person. So cute. I’m sure that looking for shadows gives you a new perspective on the world.
Thanks Michelle. I don’t think it’s something I have done very deliberately, but when you have a camera in your hand or close by and you see some of these amazing shadows you’re just compelled to act I think.
I love all of your photos and think they are great examples of shadows. I will admit my favorite by far is the shadow cast by the drinking glass. I absolutely love how that turned out. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have thought about taking a picture like that. It’s the eye of the artist versus someone just snapping a picture. Beautiful examples and thank you!
Thanks Tina! I really enjoy taking photos of beautiful things, but I think the most important thing is the mindset of wanting to capture and “save” that beauty, and that also helps us see it and be more present with our without the camera. There are many ways to document and/or see, the camera is just one way.
I love all these. The first, in particular, is what beautiful light and shadows show up wonderfully on the white snow. You have an eye for finding interesting shadows. Thanks for providing such wonderful inspiration. I’ve done my own post here.
Oh yay, I really appreciate you jumping in and sharing your beautiful photos with us Melissa, thank you!
Beautiful. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at these, and seeing the play of light and shadow. I didn’t realise we were posting more than one photo. I only posted one.
Thanks Alexandra, one or several, it’s up to you to interpret the theme.
Oh these a re precious Hanna. I love them. I can’t decide if my favorite is the shadow from the glass or the wind chime.
I made one of these pointy kittens for niece some ten+ years ago. I had forgotten until I saw your photo. So thank you for that memory blink.
And I have to agree… winter light cast the best shadows. I am so in love and could photograph all the time. I should make it a priority to get out and do so.
I have just spend another round in the rabbit hole of my photo archive for the past couple of hours and wished I had been better in tagging images. My post will be up tomorrow. I have decided to always publish on the 20th.
These are absolutely beautiful. Wow. Such stunning photography. My favourite one was the snow scene on your walk in the Alps. It looks like something out of a fairy tale <3
I love the photograph of the shadows of patterns in the glass!!!
Here’s my post.
I’m a little late to the party as usual, but I finally posted a shadow photo! My photos are on my are not nearly as organized as yours (um, they aren’t organized at all … i admit i didn’t know i could tag my phones in my phone to find them later!) Here’s my link.