Extreme lighting

I found my example of extreme or obvious lighting in the parking lot of Palisades Park in Pacific Palisades. I was there around 11:30 at night and the strong, utilitarian lighting made it obvious that the park was closed to visitors. The fixtures were typical for a public park. They’re the kind that’s a tall pole with two huge, immensely bright and loudly buzzing lights that don’t really point at anything in particular but manage to light up everything in a 50 foot radius simply because they’re so powerful.

The lights were placed sporadically throughout the parking lot; infrequently enough that there were areas that didn’t have a lot of light coverage. There weren’t any lights on in the park. It was a dark, menacing void beyond the spot were I stopped to take pictures. I was in Pacific Palisades, one of the most expensive and safest neighborhoods in California and I still got that middle class subconscious feeling of fear that it probably wasn’t safe to venture into the dark zone, which I’m sure was the city’s intention.

One particularly vivid effect that was created by the centralized, intense light was rather bizarre looking upwards and one-sided lighting of surrounding foliage. The leaves and bark facing the light was lit to the point of almost total overexposure yet much of the surrounding plant matter was completely black due to the night sky. The effect was almost a sinister or scary look, like when you point a flashlight up at your face while telling a ghost story next to the campfire. Another interesting effect of this lighting was just how crisp and rigid the pool of light around the fixture was. You might think that the light would slowly fade away in a gradient of light to dark, but really the end of the lit area was rather abrupt. Similarly, the light was strong enough that it cast well-defined shadows. Objects near the light had short pitch black shadows. If you moved away from the light, you could generate a very lengthy shadow (perhaps 15 feet or so) yet it was still very dark, almost comparable the short-shadowed objects.

Familiar light

I decided to pick my own bedroom for my example of familiar light. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that my own bedroom is the most obvious example of a place with light that you are familiar with. The second reason is that I’ve always felt the lighting in my room is sort of unusual for a bedroom. It annoys me a bit, actually. There is one light fixture near the center of the ceiling, but it’s partially broken and can only take one bulb instead of two. And because the bulbs are meant to face opposite directions, this means one side of the room gets more light than the other and the entire room is rather dim in general.

I often use a floor lamp to supplement the lack of overhead light. This light, however, isn’t terribly powerful either so my room is pretty dim at night. It’s nice, actually. It isn’t totally overbearing like the fluorescent lighting in the dorm where I lived last year. It’s very soft, warm light that is rather soothing and relaxing.

It doesn’t create hard shadows, except in the areas that are directly next to the floor lamp. It does cast some shadows around the room, but they’re all very light shadows that dissipate outwards in a long gradient of dark to light. So while this soft light can be relaxing, the dimness of it all can also very irritating. I find it difficult to do non-digital art and design tasks in my room – things like drawing, cutting, putting together things with glue. Anything that takes precision becomes nearly impossible without good light. Overall though, I’d say I like the way my room is lit. Though the constant blaring of bass-heavy techno music by my neighbors tends to ruin the serenity of my peaceful dim lighting, it still helps to make me feel relaxed and at home.

Subtle light

I feel that the lighting in my living room is very subtle. The room has huge south facing windows that get a good amount of natural light throughout the day. They do a good job of lighting the entire room with soft light that is almost imperceptible. It’s hard to say exactly what the color temperature is by looking around the room with the naked eye. I know from various science, photography, and video classes that tungsten light is yellow and daylight is blue, but it’s really impossible see unless you experiment with white balance on your camera.

The lighting here is all natural lighting, so the color of it is very subtle – it seems completely natural, because it is. As for the strength of the light, because the windows face south the room has a relatively constant amount of light throughout the day. It isn’t strong, direct sunlight. It’s soft, creating almost no shadows throughout the room. You do see some the further away from the window you get, but they aren’t very distinct. Additionally, because of the nature of the light there aren’t areas of the room which are much darker than others. Instead you see a sort of light shading effect, where objects that are blocked from the sun are in more darkness than others. This variation in light, which is also influenced by the distance from the window, is very soft and fluid; with its effects being perceptible on a large scale throughout the room rather than on a smaller scale with distinct areas of light and dark.