The History of Lighting

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The History of Lighting

The history of lighting is a very long story dating back before the discovery of fire to the casting of shadows on walls. Lighting like people has both a past, present, and future, that is where our story begins.
Lighting is a tricky world to play in for if you have too much, you blinding your subject and if you have too little you can barely see where you are going. The proper amount of light necessary changes with the room, the subject, the action, the setting, the overall mood of the scene is governed by precise amounts of light or lack thereof. Light is power, control the light, and control the show.
In the days before electricity and gas being used now for every day lighting, there was candle light. Candles have been used for centuries to light up areas of a house or for the use I wish to enquire about, foot lighting in theater. The foot lighting was used to light up the stage and more so the character’s playing on it. Though candles have a short radius for lighting capabilities this never stopped any performance, they just used what they had and created an even much more alive scene then than anyone else has been able to create to this day. Even when the switch to gas lighting was being made, some of the great theaters still stuck with candle light because even though it lacked control, candles still gave a wonderful look on and off the stage.
Present lighting is now an elaborate structure of rods and polls able to side lights back and forth, rotating every which but they give off an artificial look even though they can mimic and temperature under the sun. Though we now have great control over the lighting we use in scenes it now takes a great master to set up and maintain the proper lighting sy...

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... to decrease the amount to shine off of their skin by natural oils, like sweat. Another rule of thumb would be to take everything in small amounts at first until the subject has the desired look because it is almost always harder to add and take away mess ups in post-production which is also why it is best to take several shot of the same scene and of the same subject but at different settings for each of course.
Light is constantly changing for we are constantly moving while clouds roll by and storms rushing in, light is constantly changing and we are slowly changing with it. It is as much as an art as drawing or painting. For without light everyone and everything would be in the dark and then nothing would be seen.

Work Cited http://www.lightingtechnologies.com http://www3.northern.edu/wild/LiteDes/ldhist.htm
http://www.mts.net/~william5/history/hol.htm

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