The late Philip Thiel, my architecture school mentor, would have us modulate a light source inside a cardboard box modulator to show us the determining nature of lighting on the perception of space.
Moving, and downsizing, has forced me to use my bookcases as space modulating system, instead of wall lining, by necessity.
There remained the installation of light sources that “liberated” an unexpected level of visual coherence, and interest, to the spatial organization of my new lodging.
Read the take on that experiment by two trusted colleagues … and please make a donation to keep this web platform alive.
The liberation
For a more situation specific take on the notion of liberated image than the ones provided in my previous posts, I turn to my friend and colleague, the cultural geographer Falken Forshaw who, having examined these four images wrote:
“My attraction to these four images of your place is the viewing of a very personal space (un-staged), its uses and idiosyncrasies thus liberated: the self, sprung free.”
What I called visual coherence in my introduction obviously had the earmark of personality characteristics that were picked up by Falken.
The lighting
In photographic shop talk the perception of an image is usually “light driven” in as much as the whole is given to be seen in terms of a composition of lit parts, revealing subject “content” embedded in that composition.
My friend and colleague photographer Bogdan Karasek described the light driven perception of the feature image in these terms:
“Amazing, only three limited sources of illumination, very low key, and yet everything is THERE.. don’t know how else to say it … but it is a feeling … I like the way the sofa pulls everything in together…. the flex light fixture on the book case has light falling on the corner of the coffee table, which is clearly a part of the sofa area … so goes the narrative, even the other room is present. “
The images
Credit Maurice Amiel for all images.
All quoted comments were emailed by their authors who are identified in the text.