Cycles of ilusions

Photography as a means of artistic expression can be applied through so many different ways. A photographic ‘faux pas’ or what we would traditionally think of as a ‘mistake’ can contain so much meaning once we start being more critical and analytical. Sometimes a ‘happy accident’ can speak to us deeply and even when people deliberately subvert, or break, the technical rules of photography, the results can touch hearts profoundly. 

I took this picture in China back in 2010. It was a very cold day, and these stairs would normally take me to a lake. On this day, the water was completely frozen and climbing down the stairs led me and a friend to a nice, unexpected walk on the waters. Walking on the frozen waters. The composition also gives the impression that the shadows are people climbing up the stairs (one of them being the photographer, myself).

This illusion was honestly just a “happy accident” being created through the spontaneity of the moment. One can look to this image and think it is just a “bad” very simple black and white picture, but if critically considered we can find so many meanings in the illusion it creates.

There is a funny side, but also a philosophical one. The lake is frozen, and the illusion creates this confusion between climbing down or up the stairs. What is reality at the end? The shadows create connection with us as we face the loop of life challenges going up and down as walking on sometimes temporarily fragile surfaces. Sometimes we can feel trapped in illusions, like in the image, but as time goes everything becomes normal again. Life is made of cycles of illusions.