Drama 157 F26: Lighting Composition

Pictured below is the world's largest pop-up book in the world within the Rotunda of the LA Central Public Library! (Go check it out if you have the chance!) I hadn't known about the pop-up book beforehand, so it was truly astounding to see in person. There is so much visual texture in the room alone, with the murals across all sides of the upper walls, the designs on the ceiling, the lighting fixture (which is actually quite small in comparison to everything else), and the book itself. Seeing the illustrations of the book, Luceros y Penumbras, truly took me back to my early childhood and reading books in similar art styles like this. The brushstrokes were seen in such clear detail, like the hatching on the tree, the fur on the wolf, and the bold outlines on all of the objects. The lighting indicated by the textures within the book were so interesting to me because I forgot that's where I initially understood how people interpreted lighting (especially in traditional visual...

       On Thursday, I was in my bedroom at around 1pm. My window faces North East, which allowed the building on my right create a shadow on the trees in front of my windows. The reason I chose to log this as my blog is because there are so many textures in this singular view that I may want to use in future lighting compositions.     First, I noticed how the different shapes of leaves were creating different texture on the ground. There were the palm tree leaves that had more sharp and jagged edges, then there were the more rounded leaves (from a tree I don't know the name of) that created pitter patter on the ground. Both of these types of textures can be used for a "nature feel", but I would associate with different  scenarios. I typically associate palm tree shapes with the jungle or tropical settings, whereas the more rounded leaves I would associate with the woods or a park.     Not only did I find texture in the shadows, but also the b...

For this week, I chose a picture I took of the screen and blinds of my bedroom window. The texture of the screen is faint but still prominent as it gives the background of the photo a hazy and distorted look while making the foreground (the blinds) pop out more. This was taken in morning light, so the blinds also captured some shadows of a rising sun. I thought this photo was interesting because shows how the texture of a background can change the feeling of a composition. Also, it was cool that the camera captured a more rounded pattern of the screen squares while in person it was more a straight on grid. I believe this difference comes from how light refracts off the image so what is captured on camera is different from what our eyes see. While this screen was otherwise see through and let light pass through relatively normally, I wonder how this texture on a more opaque surface (such as a scrim) would affect the light being reflected off of it. 

 For this week, I came to a realization of how much I rely on the sky/the natural world for inspiration. This is a still that I took of the sky at around 5pm while on the Anteater Express. (Please disregard the person in the foreground, I tried to avoid photographing her as much as possible.)  As you can see, the sun in the lower right of the screen casts a beautiful golden hour glow. I especially liked how the clouds reflected different colors than the sky itself. While the sky was a gradient between yellow and light blue, the clouds took on a vibrant pink/orange sheen.  The smattering of different colors/cloud coverage in the sky was something that I found incredibly beautiful and a great display of texture and varied intensities, especially as the argument could be made that this was a form of subtractive mixing with how the clouds absorbed certain wavelengths to only reflect the aforementioned pink/orange colors. 

    These are pictures of my outdoor concrete wall with daylight as the light source, The texture of the wall is rough and completely show up from the surface. The rough texture of it give me a sense of uncomfortable and chaotic. The picture above is taken around 11AM which the sun shine top down to the surface. The picture below is taken  with the evening sunlight which the light is about 45 degree. The texture of it become more obvious with the shadow. Also, the wrinkle become more visible because the light hit the high surface first before it hit the base which amplified the surface more than the diagonal top down light.

While on the Arts Campus, this tree just spoke to me haha. The way the sunlight is hitting the leaves as well as that light being reflected and creating shadows gives the leaves a more defined texture. Like they are popping out or almost even more 3D like, even though technically they are three dimensional. The clear blue sky in the background reminds me of a CYC and creates a great contrast with the green leaves to make them pop out even more.