Monday, August 15, 2011

Secret Doors

I'm listening to Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic The Secret Garden on audiobook with my daughter right now, a book I've wanted to read for a while. And one of the things I realize that I'm fascinated with (much like many with my bent of thinking, I'd guess) is secret places. I have a love of secret doors, secrete passageways, secret gardens - secret worlds.

It's a large reason why I have this picture as my avatar pic:


This is one of my photographs, something I took on my honeymoon. It's from the gardens of the Alhambra palace, outside Granada, Spain. A secret door in a secret garden...

My love of photography and my love of writing are connected, I think, through this idea - secrets. A secret way to view something, a new way to see it, a twisted angle - a secret window on something new.

I think a lot of people have a strong urge in this regard. Portal fantasies are a sort of symbol of this, a representation of the desire to see through the mundane to the secret mysteries beyond, to peel back the plain and find the strange, the wondrous, the surreal.

This crops up in my stories, I think, and it definitely crops up in my photos. I'm hoping to show a few of these in the next while. A chance to step through a wardrobe or fall down a rabbit hole...

8 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Hey, who doesn't want to go to Narnia?

Rick Daley said...

I have THE SECRET GARDEN on my Kindle. I've seen the movie, which I thought was good, so I'm eager to read the book. In the next 24 hours I'm going to take three planes to Amsterdam (and then a train to Rotterdam), and then back again on Thursday. I may have the chance to read it this week. Along with 2 or 3 other books...

D.G. Hudson said...

It's always the unknown that intrigues the fearless. We create worlds in which only we know the secrets. But to find a secret passage or a little known entry into a special place (garden, room, or cave) is to experience a sort of wonder.

Taking photographs ensure us that we really did see 'that place', photos bring back the memories. I'd love to see more of your photos, Bryan, as I'm an avid photographer myself.

Just remember, the other side of those secret doors isn't always a pleasant place. Secrets/secret places can hide good or evil.

Carolyn Abiad said...

The Secret Garden is one of my favorites, as is A Little Princess. I'm not a photographer, but I am a gardener. It helps me see the landscape in a different light. Or perhaps I should say frame, aperture, portal...

Marsha Sigman said...

I love this. I also have a deep facination with secret doors, portals, rooms, worlds.

I don't want this reality to be all there is.

Matthew MacNish said...

I hope you have a thief or a Hobbit Burglar in your party. Warriors and Wizards never seem to detect the secret doors.

Susan Kaye Quinn said...

The secret passageway is so fundamental. We're remodeling our bathrooms and my boys cannot believe I'm not installing a secret door somewhere, anywhere. :)

Jessica Bell said...

I'm with Alex! :o)