Discovered beneath layers of plaster in 1934, the Deesis Mosaic is one of the most important works of Byzantine art. Every tour visting the 1,500 year old Hagia Sofia, the greatest cathedral of its time, stops before this astounding mosaic and stands awestruck before it. In this image, I place the mosaic, which dates to 1261, into the background, and use a tour group as my foreground layer. I waited for the tour guide to raise his red umbrella to point out a detail and then made this photograph. The figures in the mosaic express a profound sense of spirituality, and herald a new epoch of Byzantine art. The red umbrella hanging in the air before those figures seems to energize the scene and puts it into a contemporary context.