The Play of Light: A Meditation

The following video was created by photographer Winterbottom and the music composed by Danyal Dhondy.

You can use these brilliant images and beautiful music as a visual mediation. Just turn off the lights, watch, listen and then sit in silence for several minutes. No words necessary.

Stained glass time lapse, Washington National Cathedral from Colin Winterbottom on Vimeo.

To learn more about this video and these two artists, visit the webpage Stained glass time lapse, Washington National Cathedral.

Colin Winterbottom writes:

I am primarily a black and white architectural still photographer, but while documenting post-earthquake repairs at Washington National Cathedral I was impressed by the drama of the vibrant colors the windows “painted” on stone and scaffold. … I began mounting cameras to scaffold to take advantage of rare vantage points. The opening and closing view, for example — with Rowan LeCompte’s remarkable west rose window at eye-level and centered straight ahead within the nave — cannot be recreated now that scaffold is down.

… [T]the video was left silent and had remained so for several years until composer Danyal Dhondy recently offered to write an original score for it. It fits so well and complements the rhythms of the original edit so perfectly.

If you give this mediation a try and have thoughts to share about it, send a note to programs@pbrenewalcenter.org. We’ll post people’s thoughts about the video at in a couple of weeks.