The Saturday ‘Star’ (newspaper) featured a brief article about a particular picture taken by a photographer many years ago and called ‘Magic Doorway’ that served as life transforming for the author of the article. Once you get past the hyperbole, its titular magic doorway, albeit metaphorical in nature, is in reality merely a visual construct or motif built upon the illusion of a passageway to another room in nature. The illusion as presented in the 2-D format of a photograph represents that sudden change of scene, from a staunchly cloistered woodland path to a bright expansively open meadow, for example. Perhaps even the opposite scenario satisfies the theme whereby the portal reveals a shrouded trail leading away from the clearing. The metaphorical doorway is usually framed by tree branches, tree trunks, or just about anything that seems to suggest a manner of threshold for a dramatic change of scene. Both the shape and aperture of the doorway is important and almost always involves an extravagant transition in the amount of available light between adjoining rooms in nature. This rather delightful and often artful juxtaposition of contrasting atmosphere presents a formidable exposure dilemma for the photographer trying to capture some measure of the magical quality of a portal. Do you expose for the sunlight or the woodland gloom? Either way, it does not do justice to what the eye-brain conjures on an emotional level. The bond between the play of light and the emotional state harnessed to it are like inseparable siblings that are forever linked.
After getting over my brand of hyperbole, does anyone on this forum have any photos depicting their own interpretation of that ‘magical-portal-theme’ perhaps taken somewhere on the proverbial trail?
