Slacker

I've been terribly neglectful of my blog lately and I realized that I'm not setting a good example to the class by slacking off on my blog entries so I vow this month I will do better.

Welcome new class.  This is my lighting blog.

What should I write about in my lighting blog?
      Well, light would be a good thing.  
What kind of light?
      How about all kinds of light that aren't run from a lighting console during a show?  
OK, that sounds easy enough.  I mean after all there is light all around us.  Sitting at my desk right now I can count at least 12 light sources in my field of vision.  There is the sun (what sun there is today), my desk light, my macbook screen, my dual desk-top monitors, my iPod, my cell phone, Herberto's desk lamp, his computer screen, Josh's desk lamp and two fluorescent fixtures.
      Wow, that is a lot of light.
I'm going to concentrate on my dual desk-top monitors today since that's what is taking up all of my attention at the moment.  I love having two monitors, it makes drafting so much easier when I can have my drawing space on one and all of my tools on the other, what I don't love about my two monitors is they have a different color temperature.
      Wait, what is this color temperature of which you speak?
Ok, color temperature (which we will cover when we get to video lighting) is the measurement of the whiteness of a light source based on the temperature of a  theoretical black body radiator emitting light measured in degrees Kelvin.  The higher the temperature of the black body radiator the more blue is emitted so the whiter it appears. Which is kind of confusing since we consider blue a cool color and red/orange a warm color but according to color temperature blue is hot and red is cold.  Enough, suffice it to say that daylight white is considered to be 5600 degrees Kelvin and incandescent light is 3200K.

Where was I, oh yeah, the dual monitors.... one is warm and one is cool.  In other words when I have an image that is on both monitors there is a very subtle shift in color from the left one to the right one.  It's not something that is glaringly obvious and most people probably wouldn't even notice it, but since I've spent many years training my eyes to see the nuances of light and color I find it annoying if I start to think about it.  I've gotten to the point where I can mostly ignore it but every once in a while when I am looking at an image that spans both screens it is as apparent as if there were flashing neon signs pointing at it...  OH NEON SIGNS, nah we'll save those for another day.

Enough of my inane ramblings.

Enjoy the class and have fun with light.

Susan