Walking down a forested trail you feel a pull to the right. Something has caught your attention. You’ve walked this way before and never felt this pull, never seen anything out of place. But this time is different. You can’t help but stop and peer into the trees.

And then you see it. Why had you never seen it before? There is a small path leading off into the woods. It passes under a series of arched trees which almost seem to form a doorway. But to where? What’s beyond looks similar to what’s around you, and yet somehow different. The lighting is off, there’s a mist in the air you don’t see elsewhere. You feel a pull, to walk the path, to pass through the doorway, to find out what’s on the other side.

Do you dare follow the path?

This photo actually began much as described above. Walking a trail I’d walked before I had a sense of something to the right. And when I looked I noticed this small path and the arched trees, and my imagination pictured something a bit different from what I actually saw. So I captured some images, looking forward to a little experimentation later in post-processing to see if I could convey something of what I’d imagined.

I’m still not terribly skilled in Adobe Photoshop, so this was all done in Adobe Lightroom using simple post-processing tools I’d use on any other photo, mostly dodging and burning (lightening and darkening), but also adding that misty area, trying to create the illusion of a doorway to elsewhere.

Interestingly, this photo became a potential vision of the near future as a couple months later I found myself reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January, a book by Alix E. Harrow. It’s a wonderful tale of a young woman named January who discovers there are Doors, yes with a capital D, because these are special, being doors that lead to other places, other worlds, paths from here to there. And her world gets turned upside down when she finds a book titled The Ten Thousand Doors that seems to be about fairy tales and fantasy, and yet has the ring of truth to it. I highly recommend giving it a read. This is one of the magical books that can appeal to a wide age range.

If you’d like to purchase a copy and are unable to get to, or order directly from, a local bookstore consider ordering The Ten Thousand Doors of January through Bookshop.org, if it serves your area. They are a B-Corp, meaning a corporation dedicated to the public good, and they support local, independent bookstores with a percentage of your purchase. You can even choose a specific local bookstore to support if any of your local stores are affiliated with them. I’m not affiliated with Bookshop, but have ordered through them, supporting one of my local bookstores.

I’m also providing my Amazon affiliate link for The Ten Thousand Doors of January, if you prefer shopping there. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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