Our shadow dutifully follows us around, and we hardly ever notice it
Shadows are made by blocking light. Shadows are formed when light encounters an opaque object which it cannot pass through and thus get blocked. Because the light became blocked, the area behind it will be in darkness, which we call a shadow.
We also make shadows when our bodies block light from the sun. The shadow takes the shape of our body in 2-dimensional . When the sun is in front of us the shadow is formed behind us while the sun is on the left the shadow is formed on the right. Other objects also make shadows, like trees and building. Their shadows can keep you cool on a hot sunny day.
Shadows have different sizes which depend on the position of sun. When the sun is high in the sky the shadow formed is shorter and when the sun is low in the sky, more light is blocked and the shadow is longer. The biggest shadow that we know, can you imagine, is the night sky. The earth rotates around its own axis and when your location is away of the sun, the sky turns dark.
There are three distinct parts of a shadow the umbra (Latin word for shadow), penumbra (Latin for almost,nearly) and antumbra (Latin for before). The region of deep, total shadow is called the umbra and the region of partial shadow is called the penumbra. The umbra is a region where no light can get to while the penumbra is a region where some light can reach. The antumbra is the lighter part of a shadow that forms at a certain distance from the object casting the shadow.
The importance of shadows
We don’t usually notice shadows but they are everywhere. Did you know that people have been telling time using shadows for more than 5000 years. Shadows are used in arts in many forms such as painting to give the illusion of depth, in photography to give the right atmosphere to a picture, in shadow theater as a popular form of entertainment. Also in astronomy to study the different eclipses of the sun or the moon. Shadows can also be used in many vision tasks such as detection and tracking of objects in images and videos. What’s more, in psychology there is the “shadow” side of our self i.e. the one that is unknown or everything of which a person is not fully conscious. Carl Jung devoted a lot of thought to this problem of the “Shadow Self,” being deeply invested in the research of ancient esoteric knowledge and spiritual scriptures to not only treat the mind of man but his soul as well.
Went out early in the morning
in touch with her biggest shadow
stay instill gazing the fading
till the afternoon
when once again shadow shined
to sweeten her darkness
The shadow is always there and it will always be.
