Drama 16 Stage Lighting

1) Upload Photo and insert into post.

2) “Spaghetti Junction” – A photo of an interchange in Aukland, New Zealand

<http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details/1488/spaghetti_junction.html>

3) THEME: Night Life

4) In Los Angeles, the freeways are the life, the veins of the city.  The 5, the 10, the 210.  605.  57.  710.  134 and 110.  New York might be the city that never sleeps, but Los Angeles is the city that never stops.  Living in the valley, it’s inevitable that you will end up on a freeways if you are traveling more than a couple miles away.  One of the signature features of the tightly knit freeway system is the stack interchanges and spaghetti junctions – weaving layers of offramps and bypasses as 9.8 million people move about their lives. This photo brings me back to those roads.

There is a cleanliness to long exposure photography.   Objects become blurs of motion.  Blurs become streaks, streams.  Anything that isn’t static simply disappears.  Rivers of light flow across the road as hundreds of vehicles flow by while the shutter stays open.  Light becomes the single most important thing in the photo when the cars dissapear.  The city behind glows.  In areas where only a few vehicles pass, there appear to be no cars.  The lanes with the most traffic, on the other hand, are a wash of reds and whites.  Even when reduced to nothing more than their lamps, you can feel the motion of the traffic flowing before you.  Driving out for the night, headed home after work, meeting a wife, an old friend or a blind date—Oh your way there you become just another part of the flow, a streak of light in the night.

2) http://favim.com/image/64183/

3) Theme Nightlife

4) the Image is of a room with neon paint drawings on the wall, and some splashed on the floor, all being lit with a blacklight causing the trippy drawings to glow. This photograph represents nightlife to because of the colors being utilized. Yellows, greens, reds, and blues neon enough to be highlighters give a sense of adventure and fun. Even the highlighted paint on the floor makes the image look busy, as if it was inhabited with many people. The blacklight gives a cool blue light on all that isn’t being highlighted and that gives the impression of nighttime. Lastly, the position of the light source is randomly balanced upright on the floor, it wasn’t hung, it wasn’t planned; it was spontaniously placed on the floor and a big part of nightlife is spontaneity.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/c-rad_photos/5174364348/>

THEME: Night Life

I come from a town notorious for the copious amounts of rich, old white people – meaning that it’s a small town with very little to do. There is, however, the waterfront. Edmonds is right on the coast of Puget Sound, so the beach is often frequented by the local high schoolers and would-be hooligans. Downtown Edmonds has a ferry terminal where two ferries take turns docking to carry bored townspeople to the equally boring Kingston thirty minutes across the Sound. However, some things Edmonds and the neighboring suburbs do have going for them is visual appeal – trees galore. Couple that with the picturesque ocean view and you’ve got yourself one hell of a panorama.

Now, the ‘night life’ aspect comes from all of that context up there. When my friend Emma and I are hanging out and don’t have much to do, we’ll generally just go driving around in her car. Around the unlit streets of Woodway with towering evergreens (when we turn off her headlights and pretend to be in a spaceship [totally safe]), down the highway, and eventually along the waterline. We generally end up parked by the beach facing the Sound, watching the ferries go back and forth before they park it for the night. This of course leads to lots of deep, meaningful conversations – as well as the usual silly shenanigans we get up to. At any rate, this picture represents MY night life (or lack thereof), consisting of friends, conversation, and a panoramic view.

The ferry is bright and busy looking, like it’s gotten all gussied up for a night on the town. That in itself allows for contrast on a realistic level, as the town doesn’t get that much action. But on a personal level, I am usually more than happy to just sit back and watch the ferries while Emma and I bitch about life. The fairy lights ferry lights are reflected in the Sound, bringing the water into focus, which is something I really associate with my idea of home. That coupled with how much time I did and do spend at the waterfront fills me with familiarity, as well as a little homesickness. The golden reflection against the pitch black of the water puts me in mind of the depth of the water itself as well as the potential the town actually has, in beauty and entertainment – at least for me.