The private sleeping car of John Ringling, who once owned every traveling circus in America, is among the features of Sarasota’s Ringling Circus Museum. I photographed Ringling’s own stateroom through an open window, a compartment bathed in panels of geometric light and shadow. A pillow, which once served as Ringling’s own footrest, is upholstered in the original carpet material, making it seem almost ghostly as it blends into the floor at the apex of my triangular composition. We can almost feel the past here, alive within the shadows.