Beauty of light in darkness

[Arra]

There is something beautiful (to me, at least) about a mostly dark image with some light in it. I suspect the allure is more than the fact that it's eye-catching. It seems like the mind subconsciously considers it a metaphor. For what, I'm not completely sure. The darkness represents some negative state - loss of hope, abandonment, depression... And the light represents freedom from that negative state, some 'beacon of hope', like love or the realization that the negative state may be escaped. I find this true with other forms of art as well: poetry that seems 'dark' and ugly on the surface but contains beauty if you look harder, certain music that is dark and sad but beautiful at the same time.

[Darkmatters]

Aw now you're gonna make me hafta post some Dore! (not Dore, but came up in the search and fit the criteria) .. Also, this is basically what I hope to do with my animation - dark stories with bursts of light that are all the sweeter for their placement in the darkness. Cosmos by Darkmatters, on Flickr

[IndieAnthias]

There is something beautiful (to me, at least) about a mostly dark image with some light in it. I suspect the allure is more than the fact that it's eye-catching. It seems like the mind subconsciously considers it a metaphor. For what, I'm not completely sure. The darkness represents some negative state - loss of hope, abandonment, depression... And the light represents freedom from that negative state, some 'beacon of hope', like love or the realization that the negative state may be escaped. I find this true with other forms of art as well: poetry that seems 'dark' and ugly on the surface but contains beauty if you look harder, certain music that is dark and sad but beautiful at the same time. I think my mind is wired a bit differently in how it encodes its metaphors. The dark parts don't automatically represent something "negative" for me, unless the entire work suggests that what is being obscured is actually negative. My first response to darkness is to associate it with mystery. It's endlessly appealing to me, the thrill of not knowing. Until a light is shined on a dark area, it can be as fantastic as I want. But, like I said, if what actually is illuminated in the piece suggests that what is obscured is fearful, that's how I'll take it. Even fearful doesn't have to be negative. Funny how emotions don't always adhere to intuitive +/- categorization.

[Olysseus]

Awesome images... "I want to teach men the sense of their existence, the superman, the lightning out of a dark cloud." - Nietzsche. Individuality comes from transforming the dark into light. I was just thinking about whether to respond to the other thread about world peace. I wanted to say something like, all violence generates more violence. So the only way to find peace is to look at all the darkness of outer conditions and use them to find personal inner evolution. Then when enough people are working towards inner evolution, power will be given to those who can help others evolve rather than those who can generate the biggest profit. I couldn't really think of what I wanted to say until I looked at that image and it reminded me of Nietzsche. So that what these images mean to me. The ability to say yes to the darkness, as Nietzsche did, and find light in the process. War happens because we are afraid of our own inner darkness and project it out onto some other. Looking into the inner conflict and turmoil is the only way out of it.

[Solarflare]

I think my mind is wired a bit differently in how it encodes its metaphors. The dark parts don't automatically represent something "negative" for me, unless the entire work suggests that what is being obscured is actually negative. My first response to darkness is to associate it with mystery. It's endlessly appealing to me, the thrill of not knowing. Until a light is shined on a dark area, it can be as fantastic as I want. But, like I said, if what actually is illuminated in the piece suggests that what is obscured is fearful, that's how I'll take it. Even fearful doesn't have to be negative. Funny how emotions don't always adhere to intuitive +/- categorization. I agree with this post fully, sometimes, i dont represent darkness with negative, only if the picture shows its negative.

[Supernova]

Here's a photo I took a while ago. Very simple, the moon against a black sky; yet I love the way it looks, light fog/clouds gave it a sort of shining/halo effect, and the camera captured it pretty well, despite some blur on the moon itself. It looks sort of, unnatural almost, although I didn't edit the image at all. moon.jpg