On Playing With Shadows - A Series of Shadow Photographs and Philosophical Musings

I am but a shadow
the other against which
all find meaning
without the shadow
the world crumbles
into nothing but tangible textures
the world of shadows
casts a palpable
spell over what is not there
the absence of life
the presence of nothing
I am but a shadow
the other against which
everything finds significance

What is the shadow beside the negative space left behind the object with a light shining from the other side? What is the shadow beside the vacuum, the absence, the lack of the tangible, the very opposite of the shadow?

***

Fascinated by various shadows throughout the day, I turned my camera onto these strange illusions of substance. I was wholly absorbed by the poverty that remained outlined on the walls, on the floor. It was an odd moment. I utterly lost myself in the mundane, like always, but the shadows played a strange trick on my mind. Rather than remain the tempting absence, it consumed the very absent space and became tangible itself. I wanted to reach out and touch the very thing which I knew was not there.

The chair and its shadow became separated, two objects under my gaze. Or in fact, it was not under my gaze but my very gaze which caused the ontological separation of this seemingly singular entity. I caused a breakage in the very fabric of the universe, a metaphysical separation of the singular.

For is it not that the shadow is the very reason why things are? The shadow is the always present nothingness into which everything falls, but which is necessary to stand out from, to differentiate itself from.

The shadow is also a door from which we can escape, or one we can enter and potentially lose ourselves, our sanity. The shadow uncovers, discloses, but at the same time it consumes, destroys, covers over. The law of non-contradiction does not apply. The shadow allows life to escape but at the same time, it tethers and bounds the unloyal subject to the corners of non-existence. Nothingness consumes until it becomes something.

It was the lunatic philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who dared look into the void only to see it stare back at him. Did he not know that one do not look into that which is needed to keep one afloat? Did he not realise that the void is the very reason for our existence? Without the shadow, nothing exists, without darkness, ultimate goodness ceases to be a goal toward which we aim our activities.

The ancients knew best. Within every good deed, there is some form of badness, within every bad deed, there is something good. The ontological unification of these opposites is what gives them their essence. Without the one the other cannot exist; without the unknown, the known cannot be known.

Does the separation then of these two not indicate the breakdown of meaning? With the separation, the metaphysical division, of good and bad the initial meanings are dispersed into the world of the stars, losing every ounce of meaning it once had. Inherent to goodness it is no longer the counterpart of the bad. It lost its ontological cognate, its partner, its other on which it relied for its meaning. For is the shadow, again, not the very thing that gives the object its meaning? It stands out from the shadow, it has a sort of texture that does not allow it to submerge or immerse into the background. The background is the very reason that upholds the foregrounded object.

This strange moment in which life lost its meaning because I saw the shadow that upheld the very frameworks that I use to make sense of the world was something of a revelationary moment. Can we so easily lose meaning when we see the very thing we are not supposed to see? What do we make of the shadow that props up, holds up, the thing of our contemplation but without the knowledge of that thing? When we cease to see that they are one, connected, unified, life becomes a strange and fuzzy concept.

But photography, in a strange way, makes us aware of this fact, as we can contemplate and see what the normal contemplative eye cannot see. The world imbued with its secrets, the very void into which Nietzsche dared to look, loses meaning when we separate what should remain unified. But those who dare to look for a moment, through the camera lens, to see what should not be seen, can find some solace in madness, in the sweet flavour of understanding.

When we separate the yin and yang everything seems to lose meaning. But when we stare into the void, we might glimpse some secrets meant to remain hidden.

I hope that you enjoyed these musings and meanderings through the shadows of my mind.

Keep well, and happy photographing.

All of the musings, meanderings, and thoughts are my own, albeit inspired by the shadows. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 50mm lens.