Although I stopped making it a point to take photos every day when I ended my One a Day project, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped looking around me every day for interesting photo opportunities. For example, while walking down a path in a local park here in Tübingen, I looked in front on me on the path, and spotted this nice shadow of a tree ahead of me on the path. Take a quick glance at the photo before reading the text after the picture:

Shadow of a “tree”

So, at first glance did you see that shadow as a tree with a long trunk?

Except, it’s not a real tree, which I knew when I spied it, since there wasn’t a tree behind me that could have cast that shadow.  And as you look at the shadow pattern more closely, it becomes clearer that it’s an illusion. The shadow of a bridge railing to the right forms the “trunk” of the tree, and the shadow of some tall plants beyond the railing form the “branches” of the tree on top.

Here’s a photo of shadows from the same plants and railing as viewed against a wall:

Shadow on a wall, Tübingen

Except, it’s not really a wall that those shadows are against. It’s actually the same photo seen above with the “tree”, but turned on it’s side, where the path has become the “wall”. The colors in this photo are original – I made the “tree” photo black and white to remove the distraction of the colors from the illusion of the shadows.