Drama 16 Stage Lighting

I was having breakfast with a friend after class and we were sitting in the quad by Roosevelt Hall, under a tree with bright pink flowers.

As I was sitting and laughing with my friend I looked up at the branches above me, bright pink petals against an azure blue backdrop. Just then the breeze began to blow and petals began to fall and scatter themselves all around us. As fluttered in the wind, the light caught them from behind, making them glow as they dances to the ground. With the light shining through them, and the wind making them twirl in the air, it was easy to imagine that some kind of magic had caught hold of them and they were dancing at the joy of spring.

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THEME: Spring!

One of the biggest signs of spring for me is the smells. Washington is covered with floral life, flowers and trees and greenery, oh my! So when spring rolls around there is an abundance of fragrances from the various flowers in the area. Spring also brings with it Seattle’s ever-present precipitation, but this time it’s floral-scented. This picture really captures spring for me, with flowering trees and last night’s rain visible on the street and all of the bright, warm, saturated colors. Everything is overexposed and radiant, from the sky to the sunlight reflected in the damp of the concrete, as well as what caught the orange bug the night before. Everything is gleaming and brilliant and renewed – just like spring.

8 February, 2012
South Campus, outside Lowe
Around  7:30 pm

I’m walking north just before the ramp to Lowe. Gold light of the mid-setting sun covers the south side of one of the trees outside the building.

I’ve come to realize that I spend a lot of time looking at, speaking and thinking about trees – and I think I’m okay with that. The settings changed drastically for me when I moved coasts for school, and one of the most noticeable differences (besides the flatness of Long Island) was the trees. There aren’t nearly as many evergreens here as there are at home, just as there aren’t many non-evergreens at home like there are here. So naturally, I notice trees quite a bit. This particular instance really struck me because it was in the middle of the sunset, which is something I typically associate with the beach, if only because of how many I witnessed on the Puget Sound. What hit me most was the pure gold of the sunlight, and how that was visible even in the murky brown of the bark. It was also pretty contrasting, as the natural grooves and pockets in the bark were cast in shadows, giving them even more dimension with dark on one side and gold on the other. The tree was tall and scraggly and devoid of leaves, which in my mind collided with the gold of the sunset in a way that spring and winter really don’t. There’s usually more of a natural fade from one to the other – maybe with some freak snow storms every so often – but seeing these two examples of seasons so drastically converge startled me to an extent. You never really think of the seasons as being separate, rather cyclical, but at their heights they can be severely different.

Saturday 18 February, 2012
Central Park
Around 4:30 pm

My friend and I are walking from the north end of the Park, the sun setting over the roofs of the skyscrapers that make up the New York skyline. Because the sun has only just decided to set, the shadows it casts are from a rather high angle. As we walk along one of the paths heading in a general southward direction we pass by and under American Oaks. The trees cast shadows over and around the path we’re walking along, weaving in and out of our way.

The spindly branches of the close-sown oaks overlap to create a web of shadows, reaching out towards passers-by in an attempt to chase them. The grooves and pockets in the tree bark are cast in relief against the trunks, giving a startling amount of depth to the natural contours of the trees. They actually look kind of lonely. Their branches are reaching out towards people, trying to bring them in, but are only scaring them away by being too frightening. They attempt in vain to find some contact, any contact, but their efforts are foiled by none other than themselves.

1) 2/8/12 – 8:54AM – Road between the NAB and Lowe, facing south.

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was walking to class in the morning and it was chilly and slightly cloudy. The sun was up but was still reflecting some color on the horizon. The clouds had many colors displayed and silhouetted the trees.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: It was just before 9:00 and I was sleepily walking through the cold on my way to class. I was walking south east toward Lowe right off the turnpike. As I walked along I was wondering if it was actually going to snow. There was snow in the forecast but there were only a few clouds in the sky and even though it was chilly I knew it was going to warm up. As I looked down the road, I noticed a line of trees, all of them stripped of their leaves, standing very close to each other. Their branches reached across and into the other trees branches and created a chaotic mess of twigs criss crossing and fighting their way into each other.

Beyond the trees, there were a few layers of white clouds on the horizon in front of me. Clearly the sun had been up for a while and it was not a moment where I was witnessing the most brilliant sunrise of all time. The sun was hidden behind the buildings that surrounded me however I was able to witness the relatively low sun reflect its rays onto these clouds hovering in the distance. The hues in the clouds seemed to have been touched with a shade of gray tone painted over every color. There were many purples and blues with touches of a more warming vision of pinks and oranges. The colors looked pastel and muted making the feeling much colder that a more vibrant sunrise. The twigs in the trees were perfectly silhouetted by this muted reflection of the suns rays. It gave me hope that there would soon be the snow that had been forecasted.

Sunrise in Boulder, Colorado

2) Photo taken on April 15, 2006. Photography by Craig Christopher in Boulder, Colorado.

3) THEME: Sunrises and Sunsets

4) DESCRIPTION: Colorado is a state overwhelmed with natural beauty. Roughly one half, the eastern half, is the plains. Simple yet beautiful. On the Western half there are great mountains offering landscapes and beautiful scenery for hundreds of square miles. The human race is fascinated with all that nature has to offer, from the tall mountains to the deep oceans and the grassy meadows to the rocky cliffs. People travel thousands of miles just to see certain spots on earth. Every evening, landscapes become enhanced all over the world as the sun sets and casts long, warmly lit shadows across the land. It is at this time that nature is enhanced and the shapes and contours of the world around us are modeled and emphasized by the beautiful light on the horizon provides for us. In Hawaii people flock from their condos each night to watch the golden ball of fire fall from bright yellow into a orange and red glow as it sets behind the ocean. When the sun returns the next morning there is always a new set of tourists and locals alike perched high above the clouds on volcanoes watching the first beams of light cast their warm shadows across the landscape in a similar way to the night before as the orange sun meets the blue sky once more.

In Colorado, many Denver Broncos fans comment on how “God must be a Bronco fan, otherwise why would the sunsets be orange and blue.” Sunsets and sunrises are universal in the fact that they happen all over the world, seven days a week, 365 days a year. There is always only one sunrise and one sunset in each day. The sun is always the same relative distance from earth each day and is burning energy in the same way; however just like a snowflake, no two sunrises or sunsets are the same. What makes a sunrise worth mentioning is when the air is pretty clear and there are a few puffy and interesting clouds in the sky. The true draw of a sunrise is not usually the actual vision of the light from the sun, but rather the lights reflection off of the particles in the air and the reflection of the colors on the clouds and other surfaces reflecting light.

What I really like about this sunrise is that it is different from the typical sunrise one might think of. In Colorado there are over 300 days of sunshine each year. If a storm of any kind moves in, it will never last long as the sun will burn off the clouds quickly and warm the air and cause the day to become very nice. This picture was taken just as the first few rays of sunlight were cresting the horizon. It had rained all night and the pollution in the air had been taken out by the rain and the air was clear and crisp. The clouds were just beginning to break and loosen up as the sun was rising. Unlike most “beautiful” sunrises and sunsets, there weren’t any big puffy clouds and rich blue sky; instead the clouds were heavy and dark and kept most of the sky black until it was thoroughly enriched by the sun’s rays. With the Sky being black it helps give a lot of contrast to the very rich and intense yellows and oranges brought out by the sun and it crests the horizon. The oranges and yellows of the light are so incredibly intense that they make the image feel as though it is being warmed. There is a great contrast with this intense light and the silhouettes of the naked cotton wood trees in the foreground. The lack of leaves on the trees gives a clearer silhouette and also creates a temperature contrast showing that it is most likely winter but the feeling the viewer gets from the colors is that the image is almost on fire. Coming back to the uniqueness of this sunrise brings me to a closing statement. Yes, I am a Colorado native and am proud to call it home, and despite how many people think that Tim Tebow is a god and is very close to Jesus I prefer to look at sunsets that remind me more of an october sky, a sky of orange and black.

1.) 3/31/11 – 12:30 pm ish – outside Calkins Hall

2.) Overcast light modeling a bare branch tree with water droplets

3.) This was kinda fun since last night I had observed a different tree modeled by a street lamp to then see a different tree modeled by similar angles but different light color and source. Because it was also a tree with naked branches and water droplets the light had a similar glow to it, but because it was an overcast day the light was colder, grayer in many ways it looked more pure, less filtered. This increased the mystical feel of the light being refracted in the water droplets.

1.) Mindnight ish 3/30 or tech 31/11 Street outside my house

2.) Naked tree branches with water droplets on the interestingly modeled by light from a street lamp

3.) After parking my car last night I was walking home and had a lighting moment! There was a tree with no leaves but teeming with small droplets of water, too light to fall but heavy enough to hang a little off the branch. What was really interesting was the angle the streetlamp hit the tree the tips of the branches were glowing which was enhanced by the light being refracted in the water drops. It not only gave the branches dimension, but almost a holy or angelic feel to it because of the mystic glow that backlit it.

1.) 3/17/11- 2:30 ish- Quad outside Lowe

2.) Sun casting shadows of tree branches onto the grass

3.) Standing outside of Lowe looking at the quad I had the coolest lighting moment, or rather lack of lighting moment! The angle of the sun coming down on the barren trees was such that the grass looked painted, the shadows didn’t look like shadows but rather that they were a part of the grass itself! Almost like a stained glass window… or should I say a stained grass window! Ok cheesy, but it was still really cool to see the trees perfectly depicted on the grass.

1.) 2/27/11- 5:30 ish- Grand Central Parkway West, around exit 25

2.) Golden sun setting through leafless tree branches

3.) Driving home from rehearsal I cannot help but look at the setting sun through the naked trees. It is beautiful, it is lovely, the darkening branches stretching forth, wildly piercing the golden sky. The golden chariot of Apollo finishing his day long race across the sky and particles reflex and spread about saturating the air with its rays. A stunning mixture of watercolor sky, glorious, magnificent and the bare boned branches boldly defying its majesty with stark nakedness.