Tuesday Photo Challenge: Mystery

Today I am participating for the first time – as it moves into its second year – in the Tuesday Photo Challenge hosted by Frank at Dutch Goes The Photo!

The theme for this week is ‘Mystery’. This photograph shows part of the astonishing painted ceiling in the crypt of the village church of Gargilesse, in central France. Clearly, it’s a religious – specifically Christian and even more specifically Roman Catholic – theme, and as such some of the imagery is familiar, but there’s also some that’s a mystery, at least to me.

Photography 101: Mystery

Q: What lies in the blackness to which the eye is irresistibly drawn?

A: The basement. This was taken (with a Blackberry) leaning over the emergency stairwell on the 23rd floor of my old office building in Abu Dhabi.

The idea of depth – and therefore mystery –  depends crucially on the sunlight shining in through the glass exterior from the right, producing the shadows on the stairs on that side and the highlights on the metalwork on the left.


Mystery