Entry 59

 Xaviera Simmons' American Book Covers 

 image taken from: http://davidcastillogallery.com/xaviera-simmons-american-book-covers/

I wanted to talk about this picture and the works of Xaviera Simmons in general because after looking at picture after picture of emotionally manipulated lighting compositions I found it rather striking to find a picture with such "natural" light. Now, I used quotes because I don't mean that this is the only piece I've seen in such a long time that used light from the actual environment. I mean that this piece simply uses light to make the character visible and tell the time of day. The light here doesn't tell us anything about the narrative the artist is trying to convey. You can tell the scene is taking place sometime during the spring or summer during a clear sunny day but that is all. The person in this piece could be feeling any number of emotions and the story could be a comedy or tragedy the light alone doesn't tell us that. But, even this in-fact does tell us something about the photo. The artist chose to stage this shot during this time of day, she chose to shoot in this location during this season. Did she want the audience to only focus on the actions of the figure not the mood of the scene that surrounded her? Was she striving for a truly realistic shot to fool us into thinking this was a real scene not a staged photograph? Did she mean for the light to have a feel, to be welcoming and bright, and for that feeling to be in contrast with the figure inside that environment? When can a lack of a discernible mood be used by a designer to enforce a mood or style?

Entry 58

Recently I was able to aid in the lighting set up for the play Ensemble. It was an enjoyable experience working with the lighting fixtures and trying new hanging arrangements. But, while I was busy hanging those lights I noticed there were a lot of things I noticed about how the lights interacted with each other that I just couldn't really explain. Like how a light will look one color when it is by itself but when another light is present that color seems to change. The relationship between intensity and color is something I've written about almost every other post but really what is the deal. I wish I knew a little more about the science of light and how it works; like why the shape and angle of objects change when passing through a transparent surface like water or glass. Or just how far you could go in either infrared or ultra-violet light. Like how if you get something cold enough it feels like a burn, can you have a light so ultra-violet it behaves like an infrared. Mostly, the whole experience of hanging lights, observing light, and pondering about lights made me wonder if I have run out of things to say. Just how much can a person write about their uninformed observations of lights before they have to start doing calculations and experiments to learn more.

Entry 57

Rashid Johnson's Cosmic Topology

 image taken from: http://www.davidkordanskygallery.com/?aid=20&n=artists

Rashid Johnson's work perfectly illustrates how the object being lit is just as important a factor to consider in lighting as the lights used in the scene. Certain areas of this piece, Cosmic Topology, really stand out due to their brightness, but the light on the piece is fairly uniform. The golden spray paint reflects the light in such a way that we see more light coming from those areas than any other. This is obviously due to the simple nature of reflections and such but I bring it up because it again shows what you can do when you use the item being lighted in your lighting design. The light shown on this object is white; yet, thanks to the reflective color of the metal we see yellow light. With a single white light and five highly reflective yellow spots the whole lighting look is changed from white to yellow.

Entry 56

I've noticed that when a room has one light on and other light off I can see the differences in the amount of light present in the two areas when I look at a wall. The wall not illuminated by the first light is dark and there is a distinct edge/area where the rays of the light reach. However, without the wall I can't tell where the light ends it just gradually gets darker, there is no place on the floor like there is on the wall.

Entry 55

The Drawer Boy Reference Images:

Here are some images I would reference if I was tasked with creating the lighting design for The Drawer Boy, a play by Michael Healey.

Outside: Early Morning/Dawn 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside: Mid-Day/Afternoon

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside: Evening/Midnight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside: Mid-Day/Afternoon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside: Evening/Dinner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mood: Angus' Delusions/Sad Memories 

Entry 54

(L-to-R) Barkley L. Hendricks' Tuff Tony, Icon for Fifi, and Tequila

 images taken from: http://nasher.duke.edu/galleries/main_gallery/?cat=1&offset=0&pic_id=1

This comparison is really more of an illustration of a point. When lighting figures who are wearing similar colors to the colors of the sources a designer always has to be aware of possible washing out. If the objects and the lights colors are too similar the figures can fade into the background and the whole scene can appear flat. Barkley L. Hendricks; however, seems to prefer scenes where the colors of his figures reflect the colors of the background and has some great solutions to any fading affects. First, off he uses contrasts in saturation and vibrancy, all of the backgrounds in these three pieces are much softer and much more tinted then the figures. Tequila features a light pink background and though the mixture of red and white on the woman's clothes reads overall as pinkish to the viewer, the woman's form is still fully realized thanks to the sheer vibrancy of the red and white. The same is true of Icon for Fifi which features a woman in a highly reflective satin yellow jumper against a more brownish and muted backdrop. For Tuff Tony it appears as if Barkley L. Hendricks added some light blues to the white of his background in order to make the man's white clothes seem that much more pure in comparison.

Entry 53

I was looking at the reflective part of a television and notice that the colors of the items it reflected were incredibly close to the original. At first I even thought they were no different from a mirror then I looked blacked and noticed the very obvious difference between the two. The black TV's reflection were noticeably darker, but my mind really wasn't reading them as such until I compared them to the original item. Is this an example of color fatigue? Had my mind instinctively read the dark colors as neutral? I wonder how those reflections would compare to ones from a highly reflective white, or red surface. Could those surfaces even be able to reflect objects?