The best in this kind are but shadows.
Shakespeare
And coming events cast their shadows before.
Thomas Campbell
Refreshing the way I look at the world around me often involves shadow searching. Rather than just looking directly at the objects, people, and creatures around me, I concentrate on their shadows. Observing the darkened outlines is so different from my normal way of looking that when I resume concentrating on the things themselves I see nuances, details, and movement to which I was previously blind. My outlook is reset, as if I’ve gone from two dimensional vision to high-def.
Wherever there is light there are shadows. Occupying a three dimensional space behind an opaque object blocking a light source, shadows are the companion of illumination. They get a bad rap as a kind of negative space, an insubstantial outline of something tangible, a phantom existence. As metaphor, shadows have a mysterious connotation, ominous, malignant even. They are the dark side of reality, something to be feared.