Stairway to Heaven

The weather has been very cold these past few days and Friday was no exception. With snow predicted to arrive sometime during the day, I took the bus to and from work. A meeting or two on campus that morning gave me an opportunity to walk around with my camera.

The conditions were extremely cold, once again around 9 degrees F (-13 C). I had several layers of clothes on; tried to learn how to use my camera with gloves on to prevent frostbite. But my clumsy fingers kept somehow accidentally trying to set the auto timer. I think I need a better strategy.

The snow had not begun yet. But the light seemed different somehow, as it does in winter. Almost zero humidity, the light gray and a bit strange. I had walked through and around several of the engineering buildings near College Avenue, when I noticed how interesting the light seemed when I stood at the bottom of this stairwell under Hammond Building, and shot up, into the light.

The effect was a bit surreal. I shot a lot of frames, maybe 30 or 40. People walked past me, and I captured a few of them in my pictures. I don't usually try to include people in my photos; I'm more of a nature photographer, I guess. But I found when I looked at the pictures later that I liked this one best, where a young lady wearing a long coat with a daysack on her back had just walked up the stairs and . . . just disappeared into the light.

The scene made me think of a stairway to heaven, with the young lady walking upward, into the light, wandering ever upward until she disappeared into grace. The thought pleased me, made me even more thoughtful.

I shared this photo with friends (the title had suggested itself to me as soon as I shot it), and one of them commented: "Somehow I always imagined the stairway to heaven as . . . less institutional."

And I laughed at that, and I thought about how the pathway to heaven isn't always exactly what we expected. The roads to get there, the stairways, the paths, may not always be obvious ones. The stairway climbs into the light nonetheless, ever upward into grace.


The song to go with this picture? Well, I'll bet you've already guessed that. :-) It's a favorite, and so I'm posting two gorgeous versions, one by Led Zeppelin, and one a recent cover by Heart. Enjoy!

Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven, from The Song Remains the Same.

Heart, Stairway to Heaven, from the December 2012 The Kennedy Center Honors performance.