At the Intersection of Light and Shadow...

   Stepping into the atrium of the Fogg Art Museum was a real treat.  It had been transformed into light filled space.  The new, modern staircase captivated me.

   From every angle, looking up or looking down, the space was etched in constantly shifting patterns of light and shadow.  It was a contemplative photographers playground!

   And as a newly enamored convert to the abstract photographic image, I had a myriad of compositions to delight me.

    Here, in this singular space, light and shadow seemed engaged in a dance...both equally important...each contributing to the rhythm of the whole.

   Light has always been associated with knowledge and understanding while shadow is seen as ignorance and superstition.   Simply think about the two periods in European history; the "Enlightenment" of the 18th century and the "Dark Ages" or Medieval period.  But here it wasn't an either/or situation but a both/and one.

  The light defines the shadow and the shadow makes the light apparent.  Both are necessary and they balance each other.

   It is there, at the intersection of the light and shadow that true understanding can exist.  Fixating on only one leaves so much unrevealed.

   I walked through the galleries and marveled at the exquisite art gracing the walls of this fabulous new museum but it was here, in the prosaic and overlooked stairwell that I found some profound illumination.  There is a lesson in that I think...