Comment for This Week

This week I commented on my friend Chris's blog about the rubber mat outside his door- check out his blog here

Bar Lights Setting the Mood

A little late getting this post up, but I thought it was cool all the same. This is a picture that I took of a bar in downtown Winter Park on Tuesday night. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it is at the very end of Park Ave. and usually has live music in the form of a piano player. There were a couple different cool things going on with the bar light wise. The bar itself was the only one I was able to get a picture of though.

These amber bar lights created great accents for the bar while keeping the mood relaxed and chill. They were not very bright, by no means were they the main light source in the bar, but they really did a good job keeping things near the bar well lit. I feel like often times restaurants and clubs go too far with the mood lighting and keep things really dark, which can be cool I guess but it's not very cool when you're trying to sign a receipt or have a face to face conversation with the people you are with. There is a time for moody, dark lighting, but if you go to far it just gets dark and annoying. This light(similar to the Dave and Buster's one over our table) is another one that I'm not quite sure of how it works. The light was brighter in some areas than others so maybe it's a few single bulbs spread out throughout the bar illuminating the glass from behind. Either way I thought it was a great accent to the bar.

In addition to these lights in the bar itself, the bar had some lights shining on the area behind the bottles. The lights had a gobo in them that sort of looked like water and it was swirling while also changing colors. When I first looked at the wall I was baffled as to how they were achieving that effect, but then I thought on my feet and looked up. Sure enough just a few feet in front of the wall were two fixtures. I think that they were Martin's, but I could not make out the serial # or model #.

Overall it was just cool to see creative use of lights in a restaurant. It makes me wonder how many restaurants take lighting into account when designing their space and if they do design with lighting in mind where it typically happens. Do they include lighting ideas from the very start or is the lighting an afterthought? Quite honestly, I would hope that it would be one of the first things they think about as the lighting of a restaurant can play a huge part in the appetite of your customers.

Dave & Buster's Part 3

So in my final post about Dave and Buster's, I would like to point out a strange thing I noticed about their regular fixtures throughout the gaming area. In the picture you can see what appears to be a pinkish colored light. I did not notice this until we were leaving for the night, but these fixtures were all throughout the gaming area. These lights were hung all throughout the ceiling. To be honest, I cannot think of a reason why they would be pink. I know it probably has something to do with how pink light makes everything else look, but my brain was having trouble grasping exactly what pink light would do to everything around it. Would love to hear some thoughts on why Dave and Buster's would use this color light. Leave me a comment, let me know what you think.

Dave and Buster's Part Deux

In my last post I discussed the dining area of Dave and Buster's. In this post I'd like to discuss the overwhelming amount of lights found in the gaming area.

The games area a of D&B is almost sensory overload. Almost everygame on the floor has some sort of flashing lights begging for your attention. Chasers, blinkers, LEDs, conventionals, you name it, they're most likely on an arcade machine somewhere throughout the giant arcade/restaurant. None of these lights are focused on anything particular. They're only focused on grabbing the attention of D&B customers.

The lights were overwhelming at first. When the lights were combined with loud music, arcade game noises, and lots of people walking around it was enough to drive you crazy at first. (Luckily though, after being their for a little while my eyes became used to the barrage of light.)

I took a quick video, because the picture doesn't quite do it justice. The video doesn't quite capture the overload of lights as I first experienced it though.

Dave and Buster's Part 1

Last night I went to Dave and Buster's and as I'm sure you can all imagine the amount of light things going on there was insane. Pretty much every game in the place has a flashing light of some sort, so there was a lot to take in. I'll be splitting my findings there into three parts.



For this first part, I'd like to focus on a light that was actually above the table while me and my friends ate. There was one of these fixtures above every table in the dining area. What I found so fascinating about the light was that it illuminated the table and yet was still a very soft light. The material that the fixture was made out of was also fascinating. The blue cylinder inside of the light was glowing, but it was not letting out so much light that none escaped out of the focus point on the bottom of the cylinder. Because of the soft tones of the light, it made me feel relaxed and it gave a nice contrast to all of the flashing lights in the gaming area.

My classmate Troy has a great sunset picture here

The Four Become One

I was at a friend's house last night just hanging out enjoying some coffee when I looked above their kitchen table and noticed an almost perfect circle of light above their chandelier-ish style lights. Upon further inspection I noticed that there were four individual lamps arranged around the fixture each covered with a shade. The shade on each of the lamps had a small hole at the top, so not only was the shade directing light back down onto to the table, but it was also allowing a small amount of light to escape out the top. The circle on the ceiling was not perfectly focused, it had soft edges and some chain shadows in it, but overall I thought it pretty impressive that the light made that shape on the ceiling. Without the things that I've been learning in class I probably never would have observed this or paid any attention to the lights in this way.

My Friend Justin, Half-Lit

So I was sitting in lab tonight when I looked over and noticed that Justin was almost perfectly half lit by the light coming out of the closet. We had the lights off in the room as it was that we were each taking turns setting cues, making groups, and experimenting with the lights, so the room was kind of dark all in all. The light that is illuminating half of Justin's face and body is coming from two fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling of the closet. This light was meant to be focused to light up the closet and it's contents but in the darkness of the room and with it's escape out of the doorway it was a great source for some cool lighting.

Blinds Effect

I was just watching a movie at my friend's apartment and noticed that her light on the front porch caused a cool shadow on the wall through the blinds in her front window. I didn't have a lot of time to analyze exactly what was causing the effect because we were watching a movie. However it was quite interesting, the shape was almost a semi-circle of individual lines of light. As best I could tell it was the angle that the light was coming in combined with the placement of the blinds in relation to the wall that caused the shadows to be cast and the light to be let through in the way that they were.

Things are strange at 6 a.m.

So, I was walking into my apartment this morning very early and saw this light in the distance. If you look up and to the right of the lamp in the parking lot, you will see a glow coming out from behind the trees. The picture did not come out as well as I hoped, but my explanation can maybe do it justice. I'm guessing that it was some kind of construction project going on as the light was very white and somewhat dusty. I know work lights are typically very, very bright. The way the light was shining it almost created a bubble like focus over the area. Honestly, it was a little bit crazy looking, but doesn't everything look a little crazier at 6 in the morning?

Natural Light in My Room

I noticed this morning when I woke up how strange it was that the sunlight was illuminating my whole room. My blinds are closed and yet somehow the light snuck around my blinds and through them and woke me up. Strangely though, around 9:30 this morning there were no shadows cast of the blinds on any of my walls, only the pure light that made my plain white walls shine.

Kitchen Light

There's a light in my kitchen that is on the ceiling. It always seems to put out just the right amount of light for whatever I need. It fully illuminates the kitchen area in my apartment, but since my apartment is very open, the light spills into the living room and dining nook very easily. The light is directly above the sink. Shadows are cast from the bar stools on the other side of the sink/counter and you can see the light dissipate as it goes across the walls towards the living room. Whenever I come in to my apartment this is typically the first light that I turn on because it is just bright enough to make almost everything in my apartment visible.

Sometime's It's Nice To Know Someone's Home

When I moved down to Full Sail I moved in with a roommate whom I had never met before. We are in different degree programs and we only really hang out on the rare occasion when we are both in the apartment at the same time, but there is something reassuring about walking in at night and seeing the light on in his room. Sure, he may be asleep already, but it's nice to know someone else is there. The light comes out his door and spreads onto the blinds of the window in the living room area, but dissipates quickly, not quite lighting up the whole living room/dining room/kitchen area. It's just enough light to let me see what's going on in the apartment when I walk in. The light is not natural, but is created by a lamp in his room. It's not focused anywhere particular in his room except up so as to try and light all of his room. The light that escapes out of his door is simply leakage and is in no way planned to help illuminate my steps as I come into the apartment. It's a faint light, not too warm, not too bright, but it's there and that's good enough for me.