The color of gray

Like the expectations of grade-school teachers, (such as: trees are brown and leaves are green, sky is blue, apples are red and so forth) we have been taught that shadows are gray. A cast shadow is caused by the blocking of the most direct rays of light. The graying effect is from the indirect light that is present within the shadowed area. Without light, there are no shadows, only absolute blackness. So the shadow is filled with light at a lesser intensity than the areas in direct path of the light source, allowing them to be the color of the surface the shadow is resting on, only muted by the blocking object. The shadow becomes the blending of the (often distorted) shape of the object casting the shadow and the color, texture and shape of the surface that catches the shadow. So the shadow is a blend of diferent "things." Just like God is plural, (not referencing the trinity, but the Genesis use of the word we translate as God) Elohim, which conotates the multidimensionality of God. He is the light source, he is found in the things that catch the light and in the shadows that blend the object, the light and the surface holding the shadow. Shadows show us the complexity of the simple, the profound of the obvious and the richness of the visual world we so often neglect to carefully observe.