Lighting Observation: Subway station at 168th street

Posted on April 16, 2015 by previousstudent

4/12/15, 9pm, subway station at 168th street

I was visiting a friend in Washington Heights on Sunday night and I had never gotten off the subway at 168th street. And I hope I never have to again. Without a doubt, the CREEPIEST station I have ever been in, especially on a cool spring night.

The harsh, yellow lights had green tints to them, making the ugly concrete walls even uglier. It was the color that very sick, dying people are painted to be in morbid graphic novels. I had never walked down such a long corridor in a subway station before. The way the lights were positioned and colored made me feel like I was in a movie about a haunted mental institution … and I was the hunted.

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Light Lab: Or, VLL has me stumped.

Posted on April 16, 2015 by previousstudent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay … I don’t know WHAT I was doing wrong with the VLL software, but using it was the most frustrating and confusing thing I have ever done for school. <endrant>. I don’t think I did this right at all, but here goes:

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SPRING IN MAINE. I looked at photographs and many of them had purplish overtones from the water and from the sky (many of them also had lighthouses … oh, Maine). That created a big contrast between the orange of the rising Sun.

RE179, Full ; AP3100, 75%

 

 

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Malibu in the Fall.

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Mexico in the Summer. The cool blue from the water and the sky mixed with the hazy heat radiating off the sand.

AP4700, Full; Blue 75%, NC 25%, LH1778 75%

 

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Winter in New England. Because I was struggling with the program, I couldn’t find the right balance. I would have created more long, diagonal shows cast by bare trees.

RE130 Full; Blue Full, L746 Full, Green 20%, RE159 70%.

 

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Coney Island, baby!

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Rych

night-to-day-coney-island-new-york

Photography By: Stephen Wilkes www.onebigphoto.com

AMUSEMENT

I’m a big fan of Coney Island. An amusement park is such an obvious choice for the theme. The lighting is bright and colorful and designed precisely to imbue joy, wonder and “amusement”. What I like about this composite photograph is combining the night time cacophony of color with the singular bright sunlight of the day which highlights the beach goers. A bright sunny day on the beach also imbues the possibility of “amusement”.

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Confessions of a wannabe Annie Ross

Posted on April 15, 2015 by previousstudent

amusement

 

LIPS, a drag bar, for my 21st birthday. 2/9/14

To some, the lighting in this photo may spell out “tacky.” But I am a sucker for the cheap, orangey chandelier lighting in the dark room. I had two dream jobs as a child: Scooby Doo villain, and singer in a seedy, smoky bar. I grew out of the former, but still hold the latter very dear to my heart. There is something so comforting to me about the dimly lit room; it heightens the aural senses. (And of course, if I *were* the performer in this case, maybe crooning through a doleful rendition of “Bewitched,” I would be smack dab in the middle of that orange, hazy lighting.  I can hear glasses clinking and friends enjoying tipsy chatter, just from looking at this picture.

amusement plan

 

 

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Light Observation #6

Posted on April 4, 2015 by previousstudent

I think I missed a lighting observation either last week or the week before, so I’m doing an extra this week.

1) 4/3 8:00pm. Norwalk, CT.

2) Night lights illuminated in fog.

3) As I was taking the train home for spring break yesterday, I looked out the window at one point and realized that there was some of the lowest fog I’ve ever seen. When we went over a small lake, the fog was practically touching the lake, making it impossible to see more than a couple dozen feet away. But the most spectacular visual, was when we rode through the small city of Norwalk, Connecticut. The buildings disappeared into the fog and the streets were barely visible. Even though you couldn’t see any of the streetlamps, the lights illuminated the fog in little bursts all across the city. It was spectacular because it was just “light.” You weren’t seeing a streetlamp, you were seeing light. Of course it was one of the best lighting moments I’ve ever had. In this case, light was calling attention to itself, and asking to be recognized. It was truly beauticul.

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Lighting Observation: 3/24/15

Posted on March 29, 2015 by previousstudent

My friend Justin is a photographer of very eccentric (often macabre) tastes. His latest exhibit in Calkins was themed around 1980s underground gay culture in NYC. In the room he was given, he set up what looked like a trashy apartment from the mid 1980s, complete with a Fabulous Pop Tarts CD playing on a boombox, a leopard print bed spread, bottles of cheap alcohol, milk crates, lewd magazines, and a dusty upright mirror — not to mention the photographs of meat, isolated stills of the male anatomy (some mine), and kinky toys.

Above all, what set the scene for me was the lighting: An old desk light (shown in the picture), like one my dad had at our old house, sitting on a red milk crate, illuminated the room, making everyone a little purplish. Just from the way the light hit the bed spread, and bounced off the old mirror, I could imagine what this seedy place would smell like, what the owner would sound like if he answered a phone, what his refrigerator would look like. Justin did an other-worldly job in creating this atmosphere.

(PS: I have NO clue why I am making that expression in this picture?!)

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Shadow: Gregory Crewdson

Posted on March 29, 2015 by previousstudent

crewdson2

Above is a photograph by Gregory Crewdson, whose works we looked at briefly in class. Talk about a powerful image that uses shadow. Here we see this young woman scrutinizing her body in the mirror (her lover, whose feet we can just barely see on the bed — is he asleep?). The room is bathed in a cold, dull light from the window, the lamp, and some light source in the hall. And the darkest part of the photo is where the woman stands — Crewdson lit this so that she would cast a dark, amoeba-like shadow on the ground around her feet. The two reflections we see of the woman, and her body (contorted-looking, as her neck is dropped and at an angle) add a jarring quality.

crewdson plan view

 

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Photo Observation

Posted on March 27, 2015 by previousstudent

shadowThis photo, although it shows a diversely colored lighting scheme, is also a good example of shadow. The interior of what looks to be the restaurant is almost dark on the inside, although just outside the window we can see multiple neon signs. Inside, the table and bench seats are bathed in darkness, with only their basic forms illuminated by the light filtering in through the window. The juxtaposition of the intense lights towards the middle/upper part of the image and the dark shapes in the lower half creates a sharp contrast of hyper nightlife and sleepy mystery.

lighting key

 

 

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Photo Observation 8

Posted on March 27, 2015 by previousstudent

IMG_7107

My roommate took this.

I originally took this photo of my using my computer for another class, but the lighting happened to be spectacular AND fit the photo theme for this week. I’m very lucky.

The shadows in this photo make this particular moment seem intense. Although I was pretending to draw and not actually drawing, the lighting focused on the work area makes it seem like I have been up all night and the shadow behind me gives me the impression that the project was somehow the most important one I’ve ever done.

aerh

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Shadow

Posted on March 27, 2015 by previousstudent

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Photo by Peter Charney

Searching for a good image for the theme “Shadow,” made me realize that I really don’t use a lot of shadows in my photography. I did find this image, which I think is a really interesting take on the theme. The shadow in this photo is in this tunnel. There is no light reflecting off anything in the tunnel, so it is pitch black. Our eyes are drawn straight into the darkness. We fear the unknown.

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