Light Observation #1

Posted on February 2, 2012 by previousstudent

1) January 30, 2012. 8:00 am. My dorm room

2) Sunlight shining through the window onto a stuffed animal in the morning.

3) Most dorm rooms aren’t the best places to find an inspiring light. The overhead light is fluorescent and harsh. I tend to like the natural light that shines through the window. Most of the time, the light is gray and sullen because it tends to be a dismal weather day. However, nothing could beat the natural sunlight that morning. The mix of orange and yellow radiating through the blinds was inspiring. I pictured the beginning scene from The Lion King when Simba was born and Rafiki holds him high on Pride Rock. The angelic light beaming through was gorgeous. I found it ironically funny to be thinking of The Lion King since the light was shown on a sheep, which if sheep lived in Africa, would be the lion’s prey.

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Photo Observation #1 – The Elation of a Sunrise

Posted on February 2, 2012 by previousstudent

2) Dena Kline

3) Sunsets or Sunrises

4) Seeing a sunrise is a thing of beauty. The majority of the population, specifically looking at college, does not get up until the sun has risen into the sky. The sunrise brings the beginning of a new day and it shows the beauty of the world. Watching the sun rise in the morning is nothing like watching the sun set at night. Sunsets give me a feeling of romance while the sunrise gives me a feeling of hope. This hopeful feeling is truly indescribable.

In my opinion, sunsets look the same: the red and purple colors paint the sky as the yellow orange sun drops below the horizon for the darkness of the night to appear. The crimson and violet hues beaming softly out is obnoxiously over-rated. Sunrises, however, are constantly changing. Even if you were to see a sunrise in the same location, the look of the sunrise is different from the previous day or time you saw it. For example, I have been to Israel numerous times and have went with the same touring company most of the time. They take their groups to a Bedouin village for a learning experience. The next morning, the group will wake up at 3:00 am, take an hour long bus ride to Mount Masada, hike up the mountain for a sight that warms your heart: the sunrise. These groups rush up the mountain because missing this sunrise would be devastating. This picture was taken during my first trip to Israel on Mount Masada. The sun was rising over the horizon faster than I (or anyone else in my group) had expected. The sun was soft and and gentle so early in the morning, only to become the sharp and harsh light of the Negev (desert in Israel). I had never seen a sunrise such as this before. The light was barely beginning to reflect off of the Dead Sea’s waters. The golden yellow light was radiating into (what felt like) my soul. As the sun continued to rise, the light was spreading onto the vastness of the land of the desert. The morning was peaceful as our group descended down the mountain to experience the sensation of the Dead Sea. Later that day as I lay floating on the water, I looked up at the sun and felt warmth and joy inside.

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Photo Observation #1 – Aspiring Transcendence

Posted on February 2, 2012 by previousstudent

2. Photography of QT Luong

http://www.terragalleria.com/photo/?id=hale20929&subject=wild-scenics

3. Sunsets or Sunrises

4. With the busy and seemingly endless lives that we all control, it is easy for one to become blind to natural beauty. We live in a world of where anything that we want,we create. Think about your life and all of the artificial elements that surround us. Clothing, appearances, health, and even food, we have grown accustomed to all of this being “man-made” and the list can go on and on. Now throw that out of your mind and concentrate on all of the natural elements in your life. Some may say appearance, but not all. The list seems so much more limited, which is upsetting. I am guilty of this too. But there is one natural element left in all of our lives. It is the two promises or guarentees that exist for everyone, the sun will always rise and the sun will always set.

Sunrises to me are very calming. They mark the beginning of a new day, another chance to leave our mark on this Earth. I spent countless hours on StumbleUpon Tuesday night and Wednesday night trying to find the perfect example of a sunrise (As I write this at 2 in the morning), and I believe I came pretty close with the one above. When I found this picture, I expanded it to cover the whole screen on my laptop. I then sat alone in my room and stared at it for a long time, to reflect and meditate on the blissful image of new light. The perfect yellow as it pushes the clouds away had a hypnotizing effect on me. As I looked closer I noticed the serene waves at the foot of a green covered cliff. All the plant life was reflecting their color from the brightness of the sun. The green was calm and tamed, not too bright to see the full color but not too dark to see barely any. Their was an equilibrium between the two. A sunrise is much more than a ball of fire coming into view, but a gift of emotion and meditation. The feelings one can receive from this picture are immense. I imagine sitting on the cliff overlooking this sunset, the light is shining bright as it first arises above the sea. The white clouds retain some of the yellow color and acts like a border for the sun. The mixture of the two causes one to let go of all their anxiety and stay speechless and thoughtless. These are natural colors with natural feelings. I could only imagine how I could imitate this with stage lighting to get the same emotions that I felt, from an audience.

This sunrise is a perfect example of the theme and not just because it is technically a sunrise. It is a perfect example because of the feelings and emotions that surround it. It deserves the title of a sunrise because of the natural hypnotizing colors. It completes every job a sunrise should have, hypnotizing the spectator by capturing them in raw emotion. When we are in such a state it is much easier to think at a higher level due to our exuberant emotions. Sunrises can be inspiring, soothing, a perfect set to incubate ideas. It can cause one to feel so energized and powerful as the one above did to me. There was a moment of peace, not worrying about a grade or if this description is too long, but a true reflection on my life and all that I have accomplished or tried to accomplish. After meditating on this picture, I believe it let me reach a point of transcendence – going beyond ordinary limits.

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Photo Observation #1

Posted on February 1, 2012 by previousstudent

2. Sunset at Isonzo River by Daniele Pantanali, Digital Photography Shots. http://dpshots.com/photo-inspiration/sunset-photos.html

3. Sunsets or Sunrise

4. I believe this photo perfectly depicts a beautiful Sunset, with the site being the Isonzo River. I really appreciate how the photo includes land with the shore and the abundance of rocks, trees on the side, and a hill on the other side. Those three places are where people take pictures of sunsets a lot of the time. The classic beach shot looking over the ocean with a sunset in the distance. Through trees you can see the bright sun poking through as it sets or rises. On the side or over a mountain or hill. So the fact that all three of those places are represented in this photo really makes it a perfect image of a sunset.

Also looking at the picture, it can tell the complex yet simple story that is nature. You can imagine birds flying from tree to tree or over the shore. Fish swimming rapidly through the water. As the sun sets, you can see animals around the river going back to their homes, and others coming out to prowl during the night. This picture really captures the beauty of a sunset to the fullest.

 

 

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Lighting Observation #1

Posted on February 1, 2012 by previousstudent

1. January 31, 4:50 pm, Meadowbrook Parkway.
2. Mid-sunset, when the sun is still fully visible but just about to drop beyond the horizon.
3. The Meadowbrook Parkway is by no means a beautiful place. It’s a stretch of concrete and chaos, littered with angry drivers in SUVs and compact cars. The stretch of road, coupled with the angry, grey of winter, is normally devoid of color. At that particular time, though, the sun had just begun to set and bathed the entire area in a warmth not unlike July. The sky was streaked with different shades of orange and pink, and the sun gave off a glare that bounced off the surrounding cars. Even the most irate of drivers could not look angry when draped in summer. The moment was absolutely stunning.

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Light Observation #1

Posted on February 1, 2012 by previousstudent

1. February 1,2012 in the parking lot next to Estabrook Hall.

2. Parking lot lights in a row in the parking lot.

3. As I was walking home from rehearsal I was thinking about my Lighting Observation for the week and I realized I had not really noticed anything yet regarding light. Then I saw this light, and I noticed the dim light over the parking lot, and how it made me feel really spooked out, but somehow oddly calm. At first I felt really aware of my surroundings because the light was so dim I had to make sure I was safe. As I got closer to the light, I realized there was nothing spooky or scary at all. It was actually really peaceful, and seeing the shadows of trees and cars on the ground was really familiar. I have always associated darkness and dim light with scary and uncomfortable situations, but this was really the first time I have seen this kind of light and thought “Wow, this is really peaceful, and somehow I feel secure.” It was a really fascinating observation for me to see the peaceful side of darkness and dim light.

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Light Observation #1: Headlights Through the Blinds

Posted on February 1, 2012 by previousstudent

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.

 

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Lighting Observation 1 – Lee Moore

Posted on January 31, 2012 by previousstudent

1. 1-27-2011, 5:00 PM, Walking from Memorial Quad to the Library

2. Sunset from the west cast a bright tangerine glow across the side of the library tower, with a golden spill across the tops of the trees.

3. Walking from the studio past the library last friday, it was cold. It was wintery and blustery and January. The last thing I was expecting to see as I shivered was a huge swatch of Caribbean tangerine across the brutalist concrete of our library. The color was clementines, Florida sunsets, sherbet, and tiger lilies all rolled into one. It was pure summer wonderful in the middle of New York winter. Such incongruous light at a time like that evoked a warmth that did more than my wool jacket to keep out the wind.

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Photo Observation – Sunset

Posted on January 31, 2012 by previousstudent

 

 

2. I do not know where I originally discovered the picture, but it is from National Georgraphic Travel, and can be found at

I could not find the photographer or where the photo is featured on their website, only the direct link to the image itself.

3. Theme: Sunsets or Sunrises

4.

I have an affinity for broken and abandoned structures.  Ghost towns in the California desert.  Empty amusement parks in New Orleans. Pripyat. Detroit.  There is a presence in these places, a sad emptiness where memories linger, a feeling of lives lived, left unfinished.  Broken memories of what was.  Churches have an even stronger presence about them, as well as an even greater sadness.  Large or small, simple or ornate, They are buildings built to be beautiful, built to have a presence, making their deterioration and degradation even more despairing.  This building is dying.  It is winter, the trees and ground are devoid of life.  The roof is weak and falling in—it won’t be long before it collapses in on itself.

The light though.  When one calls to mind a sunset, color is one of the first things evoked.  Brilliant golds and reds, shifting patterns across clouds and rocks as the light bends through the atmosphere in its last moments.  There is little color here, however.  With little light left to hit this side of the building, the church is in deep shadow, and at some places pure silhouette.  The sun is a dull yellow, probably not very different from how it was the entire day.  For this one moment, though, just before it disappears, it cuts through the grey of the winter air, streaming through the open windows.  It would be easy to compare this light with reverence, with holy radiance and divinity.  The radiance of God is one of the most common motifs of God or Jesus throughout Christian doctrine—yet this is not enough.  This is not what makes the picture for me.

The reason these motifs exist is because of the universal connection between light and life.  This is life entering this building again.  The light spilling out of the windows reveals details in the paneling of the walls, if only for a moment.  In the next moment, the sun will sing a little lower and the light will no longer be streaming from these windows.  The glow of the sunset may remain a little longer, but the church will be reduced to a silhouette, then swallowed into the darkness as the earth turns and last of the light disappears into the night.

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Surreal Photo

Posted on May 6, 2011 by previousstudent

Theme: Surreal

The shadows and slightly foggy area surrounding here contrasts with the light that is so bright and concentrated on her torso, and makes her look almost cartoon-like. It also adds a feeling of mystery as her face and most of her body are blurred and barely visible.

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