Our love affair with doorways!

Notice how whenever you are on vacation and pass by a doorway, an entrance to a home, a passageway or a corridor, especially an arched one...you whip out your camera? What is it about doors that makes us curious to know what lies beyond it? The opportunity to discover, learn and explore lies beyond every doorway. The doorway is at once art and intrigue.

Doors have been richly used in imagery as symbols of fresh hope, of continuity, or of the movement of time. It is also variously used to represent a barrier and also to represent a connection. Every form of creative art has made abundant use of the image of doors to convey ideas and emotions.The opening of a door has forever been treated as a symbol of new hope, and acceptance, in prose, poetry, and drama. In movies, it is common for directors to show the slow opening of a door to symbolize the beginning of a new life, or the hope for a better life, or new opportunities. In a related sense, the opening of doors is also symbolic of passage of time, and of change. If the opening of a door has positive connotations in art and literature, closing of a door has negative connotations. Closing of doors is used as a symbol of refusal, of impossibility. A closed door also signifies a break with the past, or is used to show that a thing is fait accompli and cannot be changed.

So here it is...my ode to doorways around the world. Some of these are my own photographs....some are from this fantastic site with thanks to MarieMcC.

Budapest and India

Budapest, India and Greece

Mexico and Guatemala

Turkey, Portugal and Morocco

Mexico and The Uffizi

Japan, India and Tunisia

Italy, Laos and Vietnam