Lighting Observation 4.1 (The reverse shadow)
1) 2/19/12 – 3:03 – southern tip of Manhattan, near Battery Park facing east towards Statue of Liberty
2) OBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was at battery park standing on the bike path facing east looking toward the Statue of Liberty. The sun was bright and reflecting off the water, onto the building behind us and creating a shadow in front of my friends and I.
3) SUBJECTIVE DESCRIPTION: I was taking my two friends to see some of the sights in Manhattan this weekend on saturday. We head into the city mid afternoon and went down to Battery Park so that I could show them the view of the Statue of Liberty from the southern tip of Manhattan. We walked across the bike path and stood at the waters edge as they were in awe seeing the lady for the first time. The sun was beginning to get lower in the sky just to the left of the statue.
None of us had our sunglasses on and it was extremely difficult to look at the statue for very long as the sun was reflecting very intensely off of the water between us and the statue. We had to duck behind the large wooden posts that were sticking out of the water acting as tie downs for incoming boats. We used these giant posts to block the light out and catch glimpses of the statue through the cracks in the posts.
I was explaining to them what different things around us were and pointing out important and significant landmarks all around us. At one point I pointed up and noticed that on the post in front of us there was a clear shadow of my gesturing hand and my body on the post we were hiding behind. What caught me off guard was how vivid our shadow was yet we were staring straight into the sun. What was happening is that the sun was reflecting off of the water and bouncing back up onto the skyscraper behind us and illuminating my friends and I from behind. It was a cool effect to be looking straight into the burning sun yet also looking at a clear shadow of myself right in front of me. As cool as this effect was I realized just how aware I need to be in lighting designs of where reflective surfaces are so that I dont create these odd phenomenons. This moment made me realize just how hard it really is to put light where you want it as well as keep it away from the places you don’t want it all at the same time.