Art
The novice uses the ceiling and fills it full of lamps laid out in a grid pattern. Unending uniform direct illumination. These over-lit spaces offer poor quality light. Product-led lighting influenced legislators to demand ever-more illumination. Our night sky disappeared.
The art of great lighting is in part, what we choose not to light. The interplay of light and shadow helps create context, perspective and interest and is hard-wired into the primitive part of our brain.
Our eyes use cones to see by day, especially colour, and rods by night. The rods are especially adapted for light/dark (moonlight). Rods use the pigment rhodopsin which is very sensitive to light. Yet, we use bright artificial daylight to light the night. (Melanopsin is a newly discovered receptor in the eye influencing our circadian rhythm and behaviour).
As almost everything you see at night is from an artificial light source, lighting determines your experience with that physical space. Art galleries and surgeons appreciate good lighting.
Poor quality illumination and colour rendering, glare and many other factors implicitly and explicitly diminish the human experience.
The art in lighting design is complex. When done well, the impact is profound. Like walking in the dappled light of a forest, standing in a church when rays of light beam across the nave or sitting by a fireplace. A space lit well is a thing of joy. A space well lit is a supermarket.
Light moves us mysteriously because it is fundamental to our natural well being. Those who value light as art and the art of lighting contact us.