Heads Up!

[Drew Phipps]

Alan: The landing is 5 feet in depth not 3. You can see it's big enough at least for 2 grown men to stand elbow to elbow in picture 3. In picture 1 you should note that the guy you call Cook has his left foot on the landing and his right foot on a lower step. That's why his left leg is bent. Further, you can see the shade cast by his right leg pant cuff on the vertical part of the stair nearest his foot. You couldn't see that if he was standing with both feet on the landing.

Of course you cannot see the inside western wall of the entrance in picture 1. The photographer is standing west of the entrance. From that angle, there is nothing visible of the west wall to "draw a line to." The western interior wall is visible in photo 3 but the eastern interior wall is visible in photo 1. The difference between photos 1 and 3 is not magic, or focal length, or pinhole distortion, or any other complicated arcanery, its simply a matter of where the photographer is standing.

Your photographs do illustrate one point, obvious enough to anyone with experience of southern exposure and the Texas sun, but worth repeating. The western portion of the landing is in shadow. The eastern portion of the landing is not. You don't tell us what time of day those pictures were shot, but its obviously in the afternoon. If it was early in the morning, the eastern interior wall would be in shadow and the western interior wall lit up.

At midday, if the building was aligned perfectly north and south, there would be no shade at all on the steps. Since the building, and the street it fronts, are aligned to the Dallas street grid instead of compass directions, you will get a narrow sliver of shade along the west interior wall at noon. According to Don Robardeau's map, the Dallas city grid is oriented 17 degrees off of the true compass directions. At 12:30 PM, (also according to Don Robardeau) the sliver of shade would be 8.8 degrees wider than at noon. So that means there is a sliver of shade making a 26 degree angle running "north" from the west column across the stairs and the landing.

At 26 degrees, the width of the shade at 5 feet distance along the western interior wall, where the landing meets the stairs, is 2.4 feet.

(5 feet / cos (26)) * sin (26) = 2.4 feet

Unless you agree with Albert, that PP's arm is illuminated by sunlight (which I do not), you must concede that the shadow would not be wide enough for PP to stand completely within it, unless PP was at least 5 feet "north" of the column, i.e. on the landing.