“When life shuts a door…. open it again. It’s a door, that’s how they work!”

This week Sylvia (My Colorful Expression) encourages us to explore doors/doorways that have drawn your photographic eye. Another fun challenge for me because it gave me a chance to go through my archives and revisit some favorite places.

Like these images of an old house rapidly deteriorating on the side of HWY 341 in South Georgia. Michael and I traveled it most every time we visited St. Simons Island. It was a beautiful stretch of highway lined with farmsteads old and new, pecan groves and cotton fields. We must have passed this particular site about a dozen times before we finally stopped to take these photos.

What really stood out to me on the house was this faded blue door. Can’t you just visualize a cute, white or gray house with a bright blue door?

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Luke 11:9 NIV

I love old churches because of the stories they tell about the communities where they were built. Early into my transition to digital photography I became obsessed with taking photos of churches. So much so I had envisioned creating a coffee table book and naming it “Steeples I have Chased.” With the idea in my head, it wasn’t unusual for me to have Michael randomly stop so I could photograph the church. Like this one “Log Cabin Community Church.” It’s very near to where we live and has been around since 1912. Don’t you just love the bright, red doors?

What I did learn about my photography of churches (after searching through three external hard drives and my Shutterfly account) is that I haven’t done a really good job of taking photos of just the doors. Windows and alters, “yes.” But doors not so much.

I did manage to find this one from our trip to London (2010) of the main entrance to Westminster Abby. It’s definitely not my best, but that’s why we work at photography every…. single….day! Right?!?!

“The happiest of people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.”

Sometimes a door really isn’t a door. It could be the front porch or simply the doorway to the home. This photo was taken at the Atlanta History Center gardens the summer I began my “re-wirement” journey. I don’t recall where the cabin originated from but what drew me in was the opposite doorway with the colorful, tattered fabric hanging on the railing. I began to imagine what the activity in the cabin was like. I’m sure to us it was a simpler way of life, but to the early settlers it was just life.

In the photo below do you see what I mean about the porch being the doorway to the home in this photo? It’s so welcoming and inviting and draws you further into the cabin.

So that’s my photo journey of doors. Lesson learned; I need to pay more attention to doors. Afterall, you never know which one will be yours to open!

Until next time,

~donna

P. S. Next week, Tina will be our host. She is a wonderful photographer so be sure to visit her site.

P.S.S. If you would like to participate in our weekly Lens-Artists Challenge, just click this link and join us on Saturdays at noon EST: Lens-Artist Challenge

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