Third Space

Building Under Construction, View from the Scottish Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, November 2025

I arrived in Edinburgh to a cold and rainy day. I was in the beginning throes of a cold, and my trip was winding down. I had to ride the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, a trip of about one and half hours. Despite the weather, the city was teeming with people. There was no chance I'd get to take pictures without catching someone at some point, so I decided to look through my lens at the city a little differently than I typically would. I decided to capture spaces. Spaces with people, and without. Something like street photography, but outside (or rather inside?) this realm somewhat.

As I was researching for this blog, using this idea as a starting point, I learned two new terms. Third space can refer to the concept coined "third place" by urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg to refer to those social surroundings which separate us from those two spaces--home and workplace--which dominate our day-to-day lives. These spaces might be such community places as churches, cafes, clubs, libraries, gyms, bookstores, parks, theaters, museums. They can even refer to esoteric places like hackerspaces, makerspaces or headspaces--I'm thinking the space in my head that is searching for meaning in the moments of time I capture in my photographs. Triangular metaphor is a figurative model that uses a triangle to represent a concept with three core components. In this case home, workplace, and recreation space create a metaphor of personal balance and life purpose. Other triangular metaphors include the Triangular Theory of Love, triangulation in politics, and triangular theories of human development. We need all three of these components in order to survive as whole people.

This concept of third spaces interests me. People come and go. They attend, they look, they eat, they converse, they learn. They are, for a time, relaxed and content versions of themselves. They put work aside. They take a break from family and responsibilities. The moments are about them, alone. This is essential, and yet we too often ignore it.

I took this picture as I climbed the stairs of the Scottish Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh towards an exhibit of Alfred Buckham photographs (a discussion I'll save for another post) when I looked out of a bank of windows on a landing. I just happened to be alone on the landing at the time. The space is empty. Perhaps construction has just completed and the room awaits new inhabitants. Perhaps it will be a new wing for the museum. But right then it was simply an empty and still space juxtaposed with a museum full of moving figures.

I'm sure it was the clear reflection of windows on the new and ultra shiny tile floor that caught my attention, but I'm also taken by the criss cross of lines on both sides created by walls and windows and light. It is a perspective of looking out as well as looking in as if I am caught between the realms, suspended, not thinking, only feeling. There is a sense peace in this space, calm. After a week of exploring a variety of energy filled places, I welcomed this brief moment where there was just nothing, and I could breathe.