Light Observation!

Posted on February 9, 2012 by previousstudent

Monday 6 February, 2012
Outside Emily Lowe Hall and the Cranford Adams Playhouse
Around 8:00 pm

I’m walking from Lowe towards the Playhouse and I see the moon in the sky. It’s visible through the branches of one of the trees and is framed on either side by the lampposts outside of the Playhouse.

I appreciated that the first thing I noticed, despite the tree branches, despite the shining lampposts, and despite the overall light pollution that shrouds Long Island was the visibility and brightness of the moon. It was just that shade of yellow that’s hinting at a harvest moon to come, and it’s appearance through the tree branches against the pitch black backdrop was beautiful. But the invading abruptness of the unnatural light from the lampposts added a certain level of sinisterness to it, as if the lampposts were planning on overcompensating for something and outshining the moon so much that it would be drowned out forever.

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Photo Observation 2

Posted on February 9, 2012 by previousstudent

 

2. found in promotional photos for the Hotel Kakslauttanen’s accommodations, <http://www.kakslauttanen.fi/en/accommodation/>.

3. Theme: Cold

4. The Northern Lights is one of those bucket-list dreams few people get to realize in their lives.  With most of the best viewing locations North of the arctic circle (or South of the antarctic circle ), properly seeing the lights in their full glory is rather difficult.  With individual glass igloos available to spend the night, The Hotel Kakslauttanen in Finland offers a unique chance to view these beautiful displays of light and color , protecting you fromt he elements in your own bubble of life and warmth as the cold of the night settles in outside.

Despite any and all scientific explanations of what makes up these lights given to me, a breakdown of ions and particles can never covey what the aurora is.  My parents, who saw the aurora borealis in Alaska a few years ago, tell me no photo they have ever seen—no matter how splendid or vibrant, can convey the pure magic of the skys almost literally igniting above you and around you.  The cold of the far North is a cold of merciless elements and life unfit for normal human existence.  Writers like Jack London remind us of the near primal existence that IS the North.  To experience these lights, however, is an experience that would justify the pain of the cold, justify the treck into the far reaches of the globe, to live these lights before you.

Outside the igloos, the air has dropped below zero, the wind sweeps through the trees, a thin barrier of glass separating the elements from your sleeping bag as you watch the night unfold above.  This would be a night I’m sure nobody could forget.

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photo #2

Posted on February 9, 2012 by previousstudent

http://www.posters.ws/images/153626/dave_matthews_band.jpg

cold

While trying to find a picture for this assignment I had trouble thinking of the right words to use as synonyms for cold, so I looked up a definition. The one that best described what I was thinking is this one:

a : marked by a lack of the warmth of normal human emotion, friendliness, or compassion ; also : not moved to enthusiasm

I feel as if this picture really embraces most of this definition. It feels sterile. The light is bright on their faces and there are no major shadows. It gives me a sort of unsettling feeling when i look at it too long. It feels like most of the colors are shades of blue and the photographer used a similar color deprivation (no red) like what we discussed in class.

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Photo Observation – The Blue Fog

Posted on February 9, 2012 by previousstudent
  2. I found this photo while procrastinating. Sadly, there was no author connected to the photo. It was part of a compilation of photos.(The link is http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=21713)
  3. COLD
  4. This picture, while the scene itself does not seem cold, the color and light gives off a cold emotion. The lonesome bench sits there, surrounded by an ominous blue fog. The tree’s dark branches hovering over, judging from afar. The pink on the ground and in the trees is warm, but it is this warmth that magnifies the cold emotion in the blue fog. The eye is drawn to it. There is no life, there is no presence. The sense of emptiness is enhanced by the open space filled with the blue light. The dark bench has no life to it. It seems so lifeless, nothing but an inanimate object in this light. The blue fog acts like a border, keeping the warmth of pink away. The pink in the background cannot even penetrate the blue fog. Imagine sitting on the bench, cuddled up on one side, stretching your coat over your legs to stay warm just like you used to do as a child. You feel cold, caused by the actual temperature or by the absence of lively substance. This lighting could be applied to the stage. This could create a cold social scene. The tree colors representing innocent bystanders surrounding the fog of baren existence. In the middle of this fog sits an old man, totally forgotten by his family. Everyone around him goes on with their lives, paying no attention to him as if he is not even there. He feels alone and cold, recounting old memories. He feels a shiver in his spine. The loneliness has set in and has transformed into physical feelings. His sadness is chilling. He views the people around him as an illusion. Surrounding yourself in happiness does not make you happy; it makes you envious of others. His cold fog will grow and push those that he cares about away. Eventually, he reaches a hypothermic stage of depression, and dies. No one notices though, the scene still seems as lifeless as it did before.
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Lighting Observation #2 – Never Forget Your Towel

Posted on February 9, 2012 by previousstudent
  1. Wednesday, February 8th, 2012. 8:15AM, The Shower
  2. I was in the shower, getting ready for my FAVORITE class (Stage Lighting) when I noticed that I had left the door to the bathroom open. After I finished my shower, I had soap in my eyes so I naturally reached for the towel outside the shower. Sadly, I forgot a towel. I tried to open my eyes to be able to see if there was something to rub the soap out of my eyes with. Nothing but the shower curtain, I started to gently push the soap away around my eyes. As I opened my eyes, I noticed the shower curtain was set perfectly in the middle of the stall. The natural morning light stretched all the way to the bathroom, which I was not accustomed to. The light bent around the curtain, filling the shower stall with light and making the shower curtain look like a bridge.
  3.  The only way natural light can hit our bathroom is by leaving the bathroom door open in the morning and the window shades are up (which after last week’s incident, rarely happens). After forgetting to close the shades, bathroom door, and my towel, I was able to see a beautiful and rare light. The light flooded the sides of the shower curtain, creating a marvelous shape. It seemed as though the light blinded me on both sides so the shower curtain looked like a dark, mysterious bridge. I felt confused and a little dazed. The bridge was there to cross the pool of light. My shock slowly subsided and I gathered myself and exited the shower stall. As soon as I exited, the light from the window flowed straight into my eyes, blinding me temporarily. It reminded me of a strike of lighting, maybe not the color, but the feelings associated with it. I felt vulnerable (I was in the shower), confused, and blinded. Blinded to greed, ignorance, lust, and stress, if only for a moment. Most importantly I was blinded from my towel.
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Lighting Observation #2

Posted on February 9, 2012 by previousstudent

1. February 8th 2012, 6:00 PM outside the NAB on Hofstra campus.

2. The light from the Halogen lights on the West side of Emily Lowe  fell across the silver wall of the NAB, the bare branches between them casting shadows on the wall.

3. It’s cold today.  The sky is a bluish-grey.  A bit of snow is falling, but not thick enough to alter the light around us.  The sun is nearly set, but without the glowing splendor we’ve come to enjoy at Hofstra—All dusk means tonight is that the lights come on while the sky turns to dark.  The lights have come on, if we were on the other side of the building, the red-orange glow could easily be mistaken for the last rays of sunset.  The shadows of the trees are distinct: sharp, dark and slightly foreboding.  It’s a gobo in a halloween scare-show.  Or maybe Snow White’s nightmare-filled woods.  Perhaps the bare forest in a New England winter as Abigail Williams and her friends dance in the outskirts of Salem.  Hofstra University is not a scary place (gunshots heard from Hempstead notwithstanding).  This single location, this single splash of light and color, however, catches for a moment a classic image of terror.

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Lighting Observation #2 – Lee Moore

Posted on February 8, 2012 by previousstudent

1. Wednesday, Feb 8, 2012. 3:43 AM, My dorm room

2. My room is dark and quiet except for one string of multi-colored christmas lights that stretches from my door to just above the headboard of my bed. They cast a dim reddish light across the room, with each light projecting a tiny halo on the wall of the room.

3.The christmas lights in my room cast just barely enough light to see the outline of my furniture. Everything in this half light is shadowy, warm and close. It makes my room feel small and sweet and mine. The halos around each tiny individual light are bright and rich, projecting little fingers of beauty in small circles around them. The light they give off isn’t very strong, but it radiates pure colorwonderful that reminds your heart to beat slow and deep. The warmth and familiarity of something so simple as christmas lights takes me back to hot cocoa and peppermint ice cream, and laying under my christmas tree in Baltimore. With my heater on and The Mountain Goats playing through my speakers, late nights with my christmas lights are the most peaceful and comforting life ever gets at Hofstra.

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Lighting Observation 2

Posted on February 8, 2012 by previousstudent

1) 2/7/12-10:46AM-Outside of the Student Center on the inclined walkway

2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: The sun was very bright, and there were shadows being cast from trees and people walking in front of me.

3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: As I walked to class on a clear winter morning, the sun’s brilliant rays hit my eyes and washed over everything around me. The clock, the trees, the bushes, everything had a halo of light surrounding it. The haphazard maze of tree branches projected onto the ground was interrupted by the harsh outline of a person. This Shadowperson walked straight through what seemed to be a labyrinth of shadows and in a matter of seconds, defying its power and becoming free.

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Lighting Observation

Posted on February 3, 2012 by previousstudent

Friday, Jan 6, afternoon.

I was walking back to my dorm from class, and looked up at the bleak grey sky. It was the kind of cloudy sky where there are no individual clouds, merely a mass of flat grey light, dreary, to say the least. But as I looked at it, a flock of birds crossed overhead, appearing in silhouette only.

Yet somehow they transformed the sky into an old black and white film. The silhouettes of the birds swooping and diving at one another reminicent of WWII planes cutting accross the sky. There was no color overhead, but instead of making the scene gloomy, it drew a sort of focus the the shapes and the movement of the scene. While the monochromatic lighting may have made the day look bleak at first glance, it transformed the sky into an old movie screen, where silhouettes became the projected film.

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Photo Observation

Posted on February 3, 2012 by previousstudent

I took this picture of a sunset over the summer. I was struck by the way the light pierced through the clouds making it look as though the sky was on fire. Yet the clouds directly in front of the sun are still in shadow, a siloutte in the forground, lending dimension to the image. The light was reflecting on the tops of the water only, creating depth to the shadows and motion of the waves. The colors of the sunset reflect in the wet sand, which looked as smooth as glass and glowed orange along the beach, reminding me of a  watercolor painting.

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