Drama 16 Stage Lighting

7 March 2016-6:40pm-A church on the streets of NYC (not far from Penn. Station)

The front of this church was lit up with several large film lights to make it look like day on the outside perhaps while a film crew shot an interior to exterior shot.

This feeling of falseness pervaded the scene since the light was like this big illuminated patch of sunshine in a dark in comparison world. It was like someone trying to create the white and pure idea of heaven on Earth. It was like the night was bleached out by this harsh, piercing light. The light was the awkward bleach stain on your clothes. It was the thing that seemed like it was trying too much to be the thing to be the actual thing. The main point that made this light seem so wrong and unmistakable from the sun is that this light was hot, white in color. It was warm as opposed to the cool bluish daylight. This warmth marked it as fake. The various angles of the light made the shadows small and few. The brightness and seeming power of the light claimed that it would disintegrate any great patches of darkness that might try to eek out their existence in this space. The light felt like a bully trying to make its victims shout that it was day despite this being a lie. The light was an illusion of day like if someone were to use fog from a fog machine to make a water dragon’s breath. Like all illusions, the light was artificial and not the natural. The light was an actor but not perhaps the best one from the perspective of a bystander. The camera’s footage might tell a different story.

2) Photo taken by Nic Christopher. Taken around 6:53 on 4/9/12 on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland.

3) THEME: Dealer’s Choice- BRILLIANT!

4) DESCRIPTION: This is one of my most recent pictures that I have added to my collection of shots from around the world. I was happy to hear that this week was “Dealer’s Choice” because I couldn’t wait to use one of the pictures I took in Ireland for a photo observation. I noticed that when I am taking my pictures now, I am much more aware of the light around me. When flipping through my pictures and looking at the ones with interesting lighting, I stumbled across this one and decided to make my theme BRILLIANT!

Brilliant- splendid or magnificent, that is what I saw within this image. The Dingle peninsula is crawling with 30 miles of old churches, small islands and ancient monastic temple ruins. Everywhere I turned I was either walking into a sheep or stumbling across ruins from a once prospering monastic settlement. Unfortunately, the day that I spent touring the Dingle peninsula, it was rather stormy and the rain was coming in fierce but short bursts. The spotty weather made picture taking hard and sightseeing limiting. Just as I was wrapping up my drive the clouds started to clear and the sun began to poke its way through.  We drove past this church and bell tower and pulled over to check out one last set of remains from an ancient oratory. As I got out of the car, I stopped and looked up to see that the bell tower was in a perfect silhouette and the clouds were magnificent.

I see this image and immediately think of the word brilliant because of the way the sun seems to almost be pushing the clouds away and blowing them out in all directions. The sun appears to be almost a living force that is fighting the clouds and making its space in the sky. now that it has made its space the images on earth become much more enhanced and stunning. The way the bell tower is positioned directly in front of the sun surrounded by the clouds is simply magnificent. The sky almost appears to be on fire, the light is so pure and the colors are so vivid. It was a wonderful way to end our damp drive; the firey bright sky bursting open to cast the late evening light on our last sight for the day.

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

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/exposure/nirvana/image/image/48208_0_1208x1005.jpg

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.

1.) 5 pm 4/15/11 Trinity Church

2.) Sun breaking through clouds on the side of Trinity Church

3.) Coming out of the subway station on Wall Street I always notice how exquisitely beautiful the garden/grass area of Trinity church is, especially lately as it’s been raining so much. On this day it was especially gray, growse and cloudy but I noticed a small  ray of golden sun shining down on the side of the church. In contrast to the grey light all around from the clouds and nasty weather, it was especially beautiful! It was holy, angelic, pure beauty to behold.

1) Saturday night at like 8:30 @ church

2) Candlelight

3) I was attending the Easter Vigil this past Saturday. There’s a portion of the mass where all the members hold candles. All the rest of the lights in the church were out and the sparse candles were the only sources. They were a swarm of specks casting a sea of swaying shadows (alliteration is awesome). They created a feeling of inner peace and also of bonding with the small community of candles collected in the congregation. It was a soothing and emotional scene.