Pillow Shadow

I took this picture of the shadow of my pillow on the wall. I know that this is not a pretty picture, though I did like observing the quality of light and shadows that it shows. It was taken at night, so there was complete darkness except for the light created by a single small LED light. The light creates a pretty focused circle, but as you can see, the edges of this little spotlight are very soft and there is some bleeding of light that illuminates the surrounding area. I particularly liked the hard shadow that my pillow made on the wall. Because the solid pillow blocked the light, its shadow is sharply defined and completely black. I think this kind of frontlight effect would be useful in movement-based pieces where a performer's clearly defined shadow could be cast on a plain backdrop. Is there a word for a shadow version of a puppet show? It's a bit spooky, but if the backdrop is a somewhat soft color, then it could be a beautiful way to tell a story. Or scary. It would be very useful in a sinister part of a story.