Lighting Style [antikvár]

FOREWORD All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air atid we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to light. Louis Kahn (I90I-I974) I wrote this book because I wanted to know how to light my own home properly. I had long since suspected that low-voltage downlights were not the universal panacea to lighting problems. Indeed, like most shop lighting that works its way into the domestic market, I've often thought their glare and sharp shadows highly inappropriate to most domestic situations. Instead, I developed a simple system that is based on five types of lighting that can be used separately or in combinations, according to the rooms they are used in. Once you have become acquainted with them (see pages 8-13) you can begin to analyze any lighting scheme — and begin to design your own. Lighting designers recognize at least four of these types, so I am trumpeting nothing new there. But what is perhaps original is the way in which I have mercilessly applied these five types to virtually every photograph in this book, analyzing each image. In addition, the initial sections to each chapter cover one location which we lit in three different ways and then analyzed to show the relevant levels of the five different types of light. Towards the end of the book and designed to further help you plan your lighting scheme, you will also find a large section dedicated to bulbs (known as sources) and light fixtures (known as luminaires) — the Photographic Glossary (see pages 108-34). Any lighting designer will start with the space he or she is to light. And above all else, the designer will look at what space is FOR. This is a key element. You may think that lighting design is about the seductive lighting of your interior, since good decoration (or even bad decoration) can be transformed into something miraculous with good light-