Drama 16 Stage Lighting

Date: 5/5/23

Time: 7:30pm

Location: Pride Den (aka the Rat)

Objective observation: The lighting is fairly white, including the light from the wall sconces(?), though I think that’s more decorative than practical.

Subjective observation: I’ll say that it definitely doesn’t feel as basement-y in here as it could, and that is definitely thanks to the decision to have cool white lights instead of yellow pseudo-incandescent ones. Even at night, it feels like daytime in the Rat.

Photo taken by me on June 1st, 2021, 8:30pm, at Tel Yehudah summer camp in Barryville, NY.

Theme: summer

Since 2019, I’ve worked at the same camp every summer. The camp is called Tel Yehudah (TY), and it’s nestled in upstate New York, right on the Delaware River. It’s hard to tell from this photo, but TY is secluded as hell. It lives in what’s essentially a gigantic clearing with trees on all sides and the river as a natural border. There’s no cell service. It’s one of my favorite places on Earth. I’ve spent five of my last seven summers at TY, and the COVID summer working for TY in a virtual way; basically what I’m saying is that to me, summer is synonymous with TY. One of the most beautiful things about the TY landscape is the sunsets we get. The thing about this photo that makes it so summery is the fact that I took it at 8:30pm – the sun had only just set. I love the way the sky becomes a painting full of watercolors in pinks and blues and periwinkles. There’s this vast expanse of sky over TY that provides a perfect blank canvas for sunsets, and I don’t get that anywhere else.

Date: 4/25/23

Time: 7:31pm

Location: Citi Field

Objective observation: It is so bright!! There are four sets of huge field lights illuminating the diamond, and the sun hasn’t quite set yet so there’s still some natural light as well. Plus the wraparound LED screens and the jumbotron are constantly changing displays, showing advertisements or information about the game.

Subjective observation: I mean, not to state the obvious, but it feels like I’m at a baseball game. These stadium lights are indisputably a baseball game. They make it feel like daytime even as night falls.

Theme: wild card

Photo taken by me, Dec. 9th 2021 at 10:21pm

Description: I know I use a lot of concert photos for these photo observations, but I love concerts, I love concert lighting, and I have so many cool concert photos that it would be unreasonable not to use them. Anyway, this lighting inspires me. I think it’s awesome. The band is The Aces – this was their New York show at Webster Hall, and this lighting in particular was, I believe, during a song called 801, which is about growing up gay in a small town. The Aces’ first album was pretty tight-lipped about queerness, and their second album, by contrast, was unapologetically queer. This lighting represents a culmination of that growth; there’s a shamelessness to it, and also an unavoidability. If you’re at this show, you’re going to see this rainbow lighting. Also, just from a technical perspective, I like how it’s done. The lights point out and up so they’re not in anyone’s eyes, they’re spaced at fairly regular intervals, which I appreciate, and each color is such a saturated, highly representative hue for the color it’s supposed to be. I especially love the red.

Date: 4/20/23

Time: 8:40pm

Location: Irving Plaza

Objective observation: I’m at a concert for a band called The Summer Set, but this observation is for the lighting used for one of the openers, a band called Grayscale. During their performance of a song called Beautiful Things, they had a single blue spotlight shining from a light in the back stage-right corner, pointed directly at the lead singer. It was the only light on for a good amount of the song, and it singled out the lead singer and made sure everyone’s attention was on him.

Subjective observation: The blue was sort of melancholy but intense, which fit well with the song’s vibe. The song talks about the ocean a lot (the chorus even mentions “the ocean blue”) and the blue lighting was reminiscent of that; it emphasized both the sadness in the song and also the power behind it. On top of that, the way the singular light was pointed directly at Colin Patrick Walsh (the lead singer) in a way that we could see the entire beam of light was theatrical in nature and overall pretty awesome to behold.

1. Fall sunset in Vermont

Lights used: Top of the cyc is R67 (light sky blue) and bottom of the cyc is R15 (deep straw). There are three L328 (follies pink) lights – one SR (55%), one SL (55%), one downstage C (75%). All the lights are in soft focus. There is also one R21 (golden amber) light from SR at 55%, soft focus, 70 degrees, with dots gobo.

Explanation: The fall sunsets in Vermont that I found all had a lot of the same colors – pinks and oranges mostly, with the blue of the sky in varying degrees of fading or faded. The gobo is an attempt to create clouds with the limited functions of the light lab.

2. Spring sunrise in a Gothic cathedral

Lights used: SR light is R57 (lavender) at 60%. SL light is R58 (deep lavender) at 60%. Upstage C light is R57 at full. Bottom cyc is L151 (gold tint).

Explanation: The colors I found in sunrises in general were very light pinks and purples, with some gold at the bottom (as represented by the cyc) for the rising sun. I also took care to make the sunrise aiming from the opposite direction as the sunset, so the man’s shadow is in front of him for the sunrise but behind him in the sunset (above).

3. Noon on a hot summer day in Hawaii

Lights used: Light at top down center is 4800 K (slightly yellowish white) at 26 degree lens size. Full cyc is R69 (brilliant blue) at 85%.

Explanation: The single white/yellow light is my best representation of the sun (in the blue sky that is the cyc). I couldn’t figure out a way to eliminate shadows completely but Lahaina noon is a phenomenon that basically only exists in Hawaii where twice a year there are no visible shadows because the sun is directly overhead, so I wanted to try and create that effect here.

4. Winter afternoon in North Dakota

Lights used: Top cyc is R67 (light sky blue). SL and SR lights at the top are also R67 at 50%, 90 degrees lens tube size, soft focus. All other lights (coming from the four corners, close to the ground) are pure white. All pure white lights have the dots gobo.

Explanation: Winter in North Dakota is basically just a snowy wonderland. Every picture I saw was snowy hills, snowy plains, and these white-blue skies that looked like they were about to create more snow. The dots gobo this time is supposed to look roughly like snow. By the way, did I mention the winter afternoons in North Dakota are mad snowy? They are snowy to the max.

Date: 4/14/23

Time: 5:45pm

Location: Fyhre Hibachi

Objective observation: There’s a lot of natural light coming in through the big front windows, and there are magenta LED strip lights at interval along the wall.

Subjective observation: The magenta lights on the wall give an element of whimsy to an otherwise fairly nice, straight-laced restaurant. They’re charming, but still classy, and the natural light through the windows is refreshing.

Photo taken by me on Nov. 12th, 2022, at a bus station in Baltimore, 6:15am.

Theme: surreal

Liminal spaces like bus stops during late night/early morning hours are always surreal to me. I was on a very early morning bus home from NY when we made a pit stop in Baltimore. The sun was just starting to rise when I took this picture, and the lone bus in the parking lot feels just slightly wrong. That, combined with the bizarre blue/gold combination of the sky behind it, make the photo altogether feel surreal.

Description: A black & white Geico ad with a single white light illuminating his intelligent, academic gecko face. The sole source of light draws focus to his face, which is both adorable and clearly very wise, as well as to his glasses, which emphasize the seriousness of the subject on which he is speaking.