Lighting Terms (WAS:Re: [Radiance-general] RE: Bash error message)

[Angela Giladi]

Hello Rob,

 

I have been a lighting designer for (holy cow) twenty years now, if you 
include my theatre lighting as well as my architectural lighting 
experience, and I STILL use the term "artificial" to describe light 
derived from sources other than the sun and sky, though I also use 
"electric lighting" and prefer that. It's still better than "fake 
lighting"!
 
-        Rob Guglielmetti
 
 

I've just returned from 'Light and Building' in Frankfurt. I conducted a
very unscientific survey amongst my

PLDA colleagues as to which term they preferred...no consensus I'm
afraid. One fellow member did say

that the German term 'kunstlicht' or 'art light', for artificial light,
does perhaps lack any pejorative (for me) connotation. 

It is like saying to a creator of sublime silk flowers for an haute
couture Chanel dress that they make artificial flowers, 

(as in those ghastly plastic things). The comparison is a bit bizarre I
admit. 

 

(Also referring to Terrance McMinn's question) ... it's more than a
question of semantics. 

I believe that we, as lighting designers, help the architect create a
quality lit, built, human environment.

I emphasize the human environment. 

It is quite difficult explaining what 'quality lighting' means; it's
impossible to quantify. 

We have all come across notions that natural light is good, electrical
lighting is bad. Not true.  

The onus is on us to carefully choose the correct words in helping us
convey our design intent;

and the terms we use for describing the different parts of light take on
added meaning.

 

Kind regards,

 

Angela Giladi

 

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