Candle light

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Singapore, 17^th January 2014

As lighting designers of this day and age it is understandable that our prime focus is on designing around and with today’s lighting technology. Obviously if you are a new generation lighting designer you probably know little else then what is currently available in the market which is basically LED lighting. You cannot have any discussion anymore with any client or developer or they will ask or prompt you in regards of LED. Who still talks about compact fluorescent lighting, metal halide, halogen or even incandescent?

Yes us, the older generation of lighting designers who were brought up with these technologies, we rant, we complain about the good old times, but slowly but surely we are sucked into the LED tsunami that has taken the world. Uttering suggestions about “old” technologies is basically showing your age and for some showing that you have rusted in old ways of designing, not a man of these times. I have blogged and ranted about it in my blogs many times in last season. I have made my point very clear. If you don’t know the past it is hard to appreciate the future and vice versa.

I have sat around a campfire playing guitar with friends…who still does that? Even candle lit diners nowadays have become LED candle lit! The more we move forward with LED the more we will lose touch with the charms of the past. So I was upright when I read about London’s Sam Wanamaker’s Paly House reintroducing candle light in the theatre. The new Theatre on London’s South Bank has been designed to loosely resemble the 17^th century Jacobean Theatre complete with candle light. I can only imagine how the candle light bring a feeling of intimacy and connectedness. None of us today would have known candle lit theatres I would venture. Great initiative that brings us back to where we started…with candle light!

Light Watch 5-5: Images of the play called The Duchess of Malfi currently running at the Play House in London. If anybody saw it please let me know and share the experience!