Influencing My Looking Back At What It Could Have Been

©CDPhotography                                                     Hearst Castle

Over winter break I took this lovely photo of the gold, gilded, bottom pool of Hearst Castle up North. If you were looking at this in front of you, you would be standing on the east side of the room in front of tinged, dusty, glass windows, facing the west side (which is what you see here.).  What captivated me about this room was primarily how the lighting and architecture of the indoor pool created and formed shadows. The pool itself was not lit, and was dark which reflected the light coming from the windows and the light poles (which you see here). It served almost like a mirror, expanding the space and colors of the room. The shadows which are influenced by the architecture, (inlays in the walls, nooks and crannies, separated spaces) created visual depth, The closer the walls were to you, the more the lighting actually bounced off and the more color that was reflected towards your eyes. Having a dark unlit pool, natural lighting (which was from an overcast and gray day), and electrical light poles, helped to create a mood of eerie calm against the still water and blue tiles. The eerie feeling was that of imagining the pool full of life at one point, where people were entertained and swam... where all the lights where turned on so the room could be in use. When I saw the pool, only the poles where lit (lonely and alone) in a cold room with shadows... so it made me feel as though no one has swam in that water for decades.