Drama 16 Stage Lighting

March 10, 2023; 8:00pm; Connecticut Highway

The lampposts and headlights were shining on the highway.

The night sky was completely black and yet, on this small section of highway there were individual lampposts staggering alongside the road, lighting our way home. The car headlights shined similar to a kid holding a flashlight in the woods. Though the lamppost dissapeared into the distance, the headlights continued to keep our immediate surroundings lit and safe.

Photo credit: Katie O’Keefe

Theme: Nightlife

Description: This is a photo I took on a bus trip down to DC last semester. I used the long exposure on my camera to capture the colors of the headlights going past in combination with the sun setting in the background. The whites and ambers really pop against the silhouetted background and are only further added to by the orange and gold hues in the sunset in the background. I liked how this imaged captured the hustle and bustle of DC at rush hour, showing everyone trying to get to wherever they were going to experience their own nightlife while I made my way to mine.

Time: Tuesday night, 11:50 pm

Objective Description: As I looked out my window at night, everything appeared to be black and yellow, except one room in a building across the parking lot.

Subjective Description: I was getting ready to go to bed, and had turned off the lights in my room but hadn’t yet closed the shades. In the dark, I was able to easily observe what was going outside my window. Spots of yellow lights were visible from the lamps lighting the pathways and the few cars driving by. Several of the rooms in the other towers were dark, but some still had their shades open to reveal squares of more of the same yellow light. I could easily see the landscape below, but instead of the usual colors, everything appeared to be somewhere between artificial yellow and complete darkness.

There was one exception to the monotone scene below and it caught my eye immediately. Across the parking lot, in the Bill of Rights building, someone else’s room was glowing with some kind of novelty light that cycled through the rainbow. This one tiny square of light was captivating against the plain yellow and black backdrop.

1. February 18th, 11:30-12:00 at night on Portion Road.

2. This light is a bunch of bright headlights rushing by the left side of me. In front of me are red, some-what circular brake lights. These lights shined during a pitch black night.

3. As I drive home from a long day of work, I noticed the blaring, but beautiful headlights that rush past me on a dark night. They start off as a small twinkle in the distance, but as the cars on the other side rush by, they become two big white lights, creating a streak of brightness that lasts for a mere second. In front of me are two glowing red lights that flicker on and off. These brilliant lights were all around me as they illuminated the rest of my way home.

1. 

2. http://www.thepinnaclelist.com/blog/directory/sensory-overload-in-times-square-the-neon-heart-of-manhattan-new-york/

3. Night Life

4. Nothing depicts “Night Life” quite like Time Square. Imagine all of the bustling city-goers, walking on the sidewalk with the multi-colored neon billboards shining on their faces. The welcoming glow of Broadway marquees flash as theatrical spotlights beam towards the sky. Bright yellow taxi headlights zoom up and down the avenue as pedestrians wave them down. Glittering skyscrapers contrast with the black night sky. Ironically, Time Square at night is when this city shines it brightest.

1. Wednesday February 1, 2012 at about 3:15 AM.  I was in my room in Liberty Hall—the bottom floor, with a window facing Oak Street.

2. The light was a combination of three sources: The amber glow of Hofstra’s lamps,  The halogen streetlights on Oak Street, and the headlights of cars passing by.  All of these lights came through my window, broken up by the venetian blinds half-closed.

3. Your dorm room at 3:15 AM is not where you would expect to be experiencing a moment with light.  My room remains rather bright for three hours past midnight.  The blinds are old and bent, and don’t close all of the way.  They don’t exactly do a great job of blinding.  It isn’t exactly foggy, but weather is moving in, and diffusing the light from the lamps around the building.  The result is an amber glow filling my dorm, broken into even bars across the room.  The passing headlights reach the inside of my room for only a moment, then gone.  A flash of white—and gone.  It’s late, the cars are rather infrequent, but occasionally there will suddenly be a group.  One.  Two.  Three.  As the cars pass headed North, white bars race across my wall above my head.  The moment passes.  These headlights return me to my room at home—with a room on the corner and windows facing the street, that same light show would play above my head as I fell asleep every night.  A flash of light.  The moment passes.  And gone.