Doors: Part 1
Doors
… are a way in
or a way out.
… allow us to see inside
or hide things from the outside world.
…can protect
or imprison.
…symbolize the transition of one place to another - a connection between worlds (think: Monsters, Inc.)
I’ve had this fascination with doors since 2009. I noticed I took quite a few pictures of doors when I was studying Italian in Florence. I was then the proud owner of my very first digital camera and have hundreds of pictures from that trip (comprised mainly of art, architecture and gelato) and I noticed that about 10 of them featured beautiful doors.
Fast forward to 2016 after a few trips around Europe — I noticed that I had a small growing collection of doors. When scrolling through my phone, I discovered pictures from my own neighborhood in Germany, a few from Finland, Monschau, San Francisco, Amsterdam (you get the picture…) so I decided to make a collage.
~the beginning of an idea~
As of today, I have over 1200 pictures of doors. 206 of them (from my most recent adventure in France) still need to be organized and edited but I look forward to posting them soon. Even when I scroll through these pictures, I can remember where I took the picture, the weather that day and even my traveling companions.
Out of those 1200 pictures, there has been only ONE picture in which someone walked out of the door while I was taking the picture. See below.
When I take a picture, I notice a few things:
— Some people walking nearby notice that I am taking a picture of a door. The ones who see me often slow down and or wait for me to take a picture. I happily wait until there are no people in the frame.
— A few people have done double-takes as if they were wondering why I was taking a picture of that door.
— One young man in San Francisco even stopped me and asked, “Why are you taking a picture of my door?” I showed him the picture and told him that I thought his door was beautiful. He then looked at his door as if he was seeing it for the first time, smiled and walked inside.
Here’s where my Battleship skills can be put to use. I refer to specific doors by ROW (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H) & COLUMN (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).
The Very First One
Düsseldorf, Berlin, Urbania, Florence, Meißen, San Francisco, Monschau, Frankfurt & Amsterdam
the only one (so far) in which I make an appearance
the only one (hopefully) where I accidentally
posted the same door … twice! (A2 & H7)D3 is the door in San Francisco that was mentioned in the story above
F7 was taken in Urbania, Italy on a walk with one of my favorite people, Bob Cowart.
H7 Mäntyharju, Finland: I was invited to a summer home in Finland before the Helsinki Marathon where I was introduced to Finnish sauna culture. This is the door to one of the saunas at my friend’s home.
Number 2
Düsseldorf, San Francisco, Berlin, Stockholm, Helsinki, Essen, Amsterdam
D1 Helsinki’s Suomenlinna Fortress
D2 Essen: I love this Mondrian-esque door found at a playground while visiting friends.
E3 The front door of a dear friend of mine in Berlin
C1 I took this picture while on a run in Düsseldorf. I was so happy to find a green door and now I remember that moment every time I run by it.
I love B6 - a door near the opera house in San Francisco.
III
Düsseldorf, Viersen, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin
Viersen is a little town outside of Düsseldorf where my friends performed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with the Luxembourg Philharmonic. While walking to the concert hall, I stopped many times to take pictures. My favorite - A8
D1 from Hamburg’s Kunsthalle Museum
The huge doors consisting of 2 doors like D4 & D6 are very common in Berlin’s Mitte.
The majority of these doors are from Amsterdam. My favorite is C6. It is hard to tell but there is a cat sitting in front of the door.
F O U R
D U B L I N, I R E L A N D
216 doors total
If you love Georgian doors…
Because we walked everywhere, it meant plenty of opportunities to take pictures of doors in between pints of Guinness. I thanked my very patient travel companion with a personalized postcard collage of these doors after our trip.
Because of all the wonderful colors, I had a hard time finding a brown one. The neon doors were my favorite to discover and I screamed with delight each time I found one.
I visited the Georgian House Museum in Edinburgh one year and noticed that most of their doors are brown or black. I asked a docent at the museum why Dublin’s doors have so much color and Edinburgh’s did not. His answer? Because they have religion in Edinburgh and Dublin does not. I’m not so sure that’s the correct answer but it made me laugh.
And to end Part 1 of Laura’s Door Series
a quote by Morpheus from The Matrix:
I can only show you the door,
you’re the one who has to walk through it.
To be continued…