Blog #1 - Infamous Dorm Lighting

At the beginning of this week I was determined to find good lighting in my life to take a picture of but when spending one evening in my friend's dorm room I realized that some of the lighting that really affects my life the most is poor lighting. My friends, like myself, live in an Arroyo Vista dorm room that has a single light at one end of the room opposite of the two beds. The single light is round and roughly a foot across in diameter. It cast's a harsh florescent bluish light. However, despite the actual lighting of the room, looking just at the light itself is kind of beautiful. The shape and color of the light means that looking directly at it looks just like a pool of light on the ceiling. The issue comes when the light is dispersed. Because the light is pushed to one side of the room the far part of the room is bathed in a concentrated sterile looking light where as the side of the room without light is cast into a dusty gloom. When taking pictures of the light dispersion it looks as though you can see a distinct line where the direct light stops and the room falls into darkness. I chose to discuss this particular lighting situation because it has been the cause of many conversations and even more complaints. The way the light is set up during the evening and night it is impossible to do anything in the section of the room that the light doesn't directly hit without supplemental light, I have implemented such supplemental lighting in my own room. But in addition to inconvenience, this lighting casts and unfortunate grim mood on an otherwise cheerful room. The light makes all who enter seem a few shades paler and the entire energy seems duller, dejected, and industrial. When the lighting in a room is softer and welcoming and makes the occupants look good it is easy to overlook the lighting, however, when the lighting in a room is cool and makes the occupants look pale and sick it becomes highly talked of and widely complained about.