6 March 2012

A Shadow of our Future Selves

Aerial Shadows
Living in a Nordic city, you get to experience wild shadows throughout the year. Okay, shadows are perhaps not "wild" but the length of the shadows is one of our surest indicators of season. The longer they get, the closer to winter we are or, as is the case right now, the shorter they get, then spring is on the way.
Traffic by Felix_6 Traffic by Felix_7
As is so often the case, we sit down to write a blogpost and then it morphs into a larger theme.

Looking through our archives we realised that shadows have featured prominently over the past five years. Aren't shadows lovely? And when combined with the very aesthetic bicycle, all manner of visual pleasure is to be had.

Bikeshadows, Bikeshadows Father and Son
The shot at left gives you a good indication of the length of winter shadows in northern climes. A person on a bicycle is as long as a truck in the late afternoon. You either chase your shadow or it follows you like a puppy.

Longshadow Chasing Dual Shadowism
Onesome or twosome? Twosome or foursome?
Cyclist Shadows
Sometimes your shadows are so long they wrap around the world and you can see the end of it just ahead of you on the cycle track.
Wartime
This is a rather famous photograph, taken during the Second World War by the photographer Tage Christiansen. He has always been a source of inspiration for me, not least because of his bicycle shots. It's hard to say what time of year this photo was taken but it's either early spring or late autumn, based on the length of the shadows.
Raw Urban Bike Overtaking

Cyclist Red. Lines.
Aerial cycle chic with shadows.
Sideways Shadows Dizzy Springtime
Left Turn Topsy Turvy Copenhagen
Shadows make the world topsy-turvy.

Cyclist Shadow Cyclist Afternoon Cyclist Shadows 3 Cyclists
Nobody says shadows have to lie down on the job.
Night.Bike.Light.Copenhagen. Nordic Evening_1
Nobody says that you even need daylight.
Bicycle Freedom

Here's a photoset with all our shadowy photographs featuring bicycles:


5 comments:

  1. Do you know the Anjou Vintage Velo ? An event mixing cycle and vintage in Saumur (France) and organized by the General Cuncil of Maine-et-Loire.

    >> http://www.anjou-velo-vintage.com/programme/?lang=en

    If you want more details, contact me at j.chopin@cg49.fr

    Thank you !

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  2. I love this post.

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  3. Great words and great pictures!

    Greg

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  4. Inspiring post... Beautiful words and even better fotos!

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