Lighting Observation 8.1
1) DATE-TIME-LOCATION: 3/20/12 – 2:27AM – Parking lot between Van der Poel and Netherlands.
2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was walking back to my room in the early morning on the 20th. I was walking across the parking lot on the North side of campus with a few friends. The fog was really thick and the street lights were illuminating the fog and creating silhouettes against the trees.
3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: In the wee hours of the morning on the first day of spring I had an unreal lighting moment. It was my birthday, I wanted to go out for a walk and enjoy the wonderful night that we were having. I walked with a friend all the way to the quidditch field beyond the fitness center. We walked for about half an hour enjoying the spring time air and the birds that were chirping and the bunnies that were running all over the fields at 2:00 AM. It was a very cool time to be out when it seemed that most people were asleep yet there was all of this wildlife and all of these other critters wondering around. As we walked the fog began to roll in and continued to get denser and denser. It created an almost erie feeling as all of the sudden we were closed off from the world around us and brought into the close confines of just the field and the leaping bunnies at our feet. We laid down in the grass and absorbed all of the things around us, the sounds, the lights, the cars, the bunnies and the birds chirping like as if the sun was rising on a hot summer day.
After a while of laying down we decided it was late enough that we should get some junk food from HofUsa and call it a night. We began to wander back toward the fitness center and back toward the Netherlands. After getting food we passed Van der poel tower and began our walk across the large parking lot. The fog was really dense and heavy all around campus. We could not even see the tops of the towers it was so thick. The street lights were glowing bright and illuminating all of the particles of water that were floating all around us. As we passed some naked trees in a little bank of rocks in between parking lots, I noticed just how beautiful this image really was. The orangish glow from the light bulbs was broadcasting starbursts of light in all directions. When I aligned myself with a tree between me and one of the lamps, I noticed what an amazing silhouette had been created. With the light bursting out from the street lamp it added the only color into the night sky. The tree was completely black and baren against the orange and grey backdrop of the glowing fog. As we continued to walk I noticed that each branch had cast its own individual shadow that I could follow the distinct shape of all the way to the ground. There were beams of light bursting through each branch creating bright and dark lines radiating from the lamp to the tree to the ground. It was a spactacular sight and I was so happy I decided to take the walk to celebrate my birthday.