Sunday 24 October 2010

The Process: Lights

For the light I needed underneath the acrylic, the best choice was to use the light boxes the University already had in their possession. I had also planned to use additional lights but they were not very effective. The only lights I needed were lights from underneath the acrylic, and the lightbox is the only light that could do that. I had another 500 watt light in the scene, but when i turned it on, it bounced off the walls and illuminated the entire scene and the light from the lightbox was not as visible anymore. I also noticed that the light from the lightbox was not travelling straight upwards, it was also wandering to the side, so I found something to put on the sides of the lightbox to prevent the light from escaping, and to just bounce the light back into the scene.

I also got an idea to introduce my own light rig. Because the light from the lightbox was relatively weak, I decided to bring in a 500 watt light and then reflect that off something unto my work but this did not go as planned. The light was far too bright and was not directional either. It went everywhere and bounced off the walls to completely illuminate the room and lessen the effect of the lightbox. I took the barn doors off of another light that was not working and tried applying this to the new light but this did not work out as planned either. The light leaked from the edges and the surface I was going to bounce the light off just wasn't effective enough so I stuck to the original plan.

The original plan was to use UV lights, but with UV lights, I could have placed them above the camera and the acrylic path. The problems of this are costs and also the placement of the lights. I have no previous experience with UV lights so I do not know how they were going to react with my camera or the acrylic and I didn't have the money or time to waste on a possibility so I looked into another alternative.


Boards on side to prevent light leaking

Light Direction
Broken Light with Barn Doors

Barn doors on 500 watt light 

Light leaking from sides

Attempt to bounce light but its illuminated the entire room.

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