TITLE: Eternal life
NAME: Neal Delfeld
COUNTRY: USA
EMAIL: delfeld@mailcity.com
TOPIC: Fantasy and mysticism
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
JPGFILE: nealmyst.jpg
RENDERER USED: 
    MegaPov

TOOLS USED: 
    Paint Shop Pro 4

RENDER TIME: 
    10 min.

HARDWARE USED: 
    AMD 350


IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 


  This is the mysticism part of my entry in this month's contest.
  
  Mysticism, as first defined by American Heritage dictionary, is immediate
consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God.  I find this
coincides quite nicely with their 4th definition: vague, groundless
speculation.
  This started as a hallway with mirrors along the wall, with two dark figures
reflected in the mirror, though it would be hard to tell whether the image was
showing the hall or a reflection of the hall.  This changed, of course, as all
my images do along the way.  
  The mirror at the end of the hall ended up as the inside of a clipped, oblong
sphere.  This makes it look like there is no mirror, but a cliff.  This changed
the idea of the figures, and I made them transparent to reflect the idea of
mortality against the belief in the transcendent.  
  Something like: we have an idea of immortality which is generally a pale
imitation - a perfection - of our own existence.  Without care, this may seem
like real after-life.  But the mere outline of the idea that everyone's
afterlife is a reflection of their own existence is enough to show one's own
for what it is.  Even still we walk forward and have this mild cliff to fall
down at the end, and have to go on what we have, and the best we can do is make
our illusions as close to the truth as we can.


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED: 


  Years of thought and work with the possibilities of the medium.