Weekly Photography Prompt: Gateway
For week of 2024-02-24 to 2024-03-01
Create and share one or more photos inspired by this week's prompt, "Gateway" on your Aminus3 website, Substack Notes, or linked in the comments on this post.
You can also add the tag:
#Am3-prompt-202409
Be Inspired and Learn Something New
Do you ever think about the use of symbolism in your photography?
There has been a good discussion this week about the meaning of photos, or if a photo even has to have a meaning at all.
Whether intended or not, the photos we are creating and sharing everyday are full of multi-layered meaning and symbols.
This might be on a personal level, like evoking a nostalgic feeling from a place you photographed that others have also visited, or at a collective archetypal level where certain subjects resonate in a very specific way to a larger group of people.
Take sports for example. A flash of a team logo or mascot might generate a range of feelings from unyielding devotion to pure hatred.
This week we are going to explore one of those archetypal big symbols that is rooted into the myths and legends of humanity dating back thousands of years.
The gateway.
At a pure visual level, a gateway is just that. A door, a fence, a portal, an opening.
Under the surface of that simple idea, there are deep psychological connections that many of us experience, but perhaps don't even realize.
Scientific study has even given us a name of the phenomenon of passing through such a gateway, the "Doorway Effect."
Studies have shown that our brains do a little reset when walking from one room to another. Get up to fetch something from the other room, pass through the open door, and darned if you can't remember why you walked in there in the first place.
Way back in 1949, in his book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, Joseph Campbell outlined the blueprint for hundreds of books and films to follow. As seen across the ages from humble hobbits, to Luke Skywalker, to Neo in the Matrix. Each hero stepped through the proverbial gateway, or threshold in Campbell’s terminology, where they left their comfort zone of the ordinary and familiar into the unknown to meet their fate.
In photography, we can explore the idea of a gateway. We can depict a transition from one state of being to another. For example, cemeteries are often accessed through a gateway where we step through from the world of the living to the world of the dead.
Even closer to home, there is a gateway that represents the threshold from our comfort and familiar world to the world outside. The front door.
Give that some thought as you go out this week to explore the gateways of your world.
Last Week’s Prompt Photos for “Head Light”
For the previous prompt of “Head Light”, a parallel theme of light and shadow emerged. There were many great ideas and unique interpretations shared, and these were a few of our favorites.
See all the photos shared for last week’s Head Light prompt.
Thanks, and I really like the way you've introduced this week's prompt, "At a pure visual level, a gateway is just that. A door, a fence, a portal, an opening...Under the surface of that simple idea, there are deep psychological connections that many of us experience, but perhaps don't even realize....In photography, we can explore the idea of a gateway. We can depict a transition from one state of being to another."
Love it!