This is a picture of the ceiling inside Hoffman Covered Bridge. It was used as an entry to a photo contest of sorts, one that highlights photographers at work.
This was entered under the theme “Structures”. My first thought for this category was to feature something literal, like a building. But this picture is just a little more abstract, at least partly due to the use of a fisheye lens. This causes many of the straight features in the scene to curve, giving them a slight touch of the unreal. For me, this added a little sense of the abstract to the picture, and so made it speak more of structures in general — the idea of constructed things.
Sometimes, how we see things reveals as much about ourselves as the things we see. For me, this picture evokes a larger sense of structure — to some extent, the idea itself. What does “structure” mean to me? Is it necessarily physical, or can it refer to something non-physical like the structure of a story? Does it have to be man-made, or can something natural like a galaxy have a structure?
Interestingly, structure can generally refer to non-physical things and also to non man-made things. In a way, this picture captures all these perspectives. Although the subject is both physical and man-made, the slightly distorted and unreal characteristics strain both of those characterizations. It allows us to explore all these perspectives as we ponder the subject.
This is what makes photography interesting, what moves it beyond technique and creativity and become a tool for exploring the world and ourselves.