everyday light

where the cursor meets the letter

benarimcdonald — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 07:23:23 +0000

Oh the colorful joy when a text cursor crosses a letter line! Have you noticed this when you type? The effect seems most prominent when crossing the cursor with a steeply sloping line. Intentional effect – or accidental phenomenon?

rim reflection

benarimcdonald — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:43:06 +0000

I thought this was a chalk outline on the pavement until it became evident this was light – a halo coming from the Jeep rim. There’s a lot of shiny chrome going on in there – but since most of the geometry is curved, the complex reflections are lost in the abundant daylight. It is the flat band around the perimeter that acts as a true mirror and out-shines all other effects.

Eichler’s all around

benarimcdonald — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:53:44 +0000

A weekend walk around an Eichler neighborhood in Grenada Hills…

Some homes beautifully restored. Some badly decayed. Others restyled. Kind of mind blowing.

fork focus

benarimcdonald — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:14:33 +0000

The world’s most ubiquitous solar concentrator.

eye experiments

benarimcdonald — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:17:21 +0000

Fun sightings for the New Year:

1. Ping pong eyes: Ping pong is all the rage these days. That means we have more balls to recycle after they’ve lost their bounce. It’s just fun to walk around the neighborhood with these on. They provide a good intro to the Ganzfeld effect (discussed previously) – and they turn us into instant illuminance light meters.

2. Afterimages: It’s good to have a handy afterimage slide on hand. Stare at this text for 30 seconds and then close your eyes to find the new color.

3. Blood vessels: A very cool experiment! I find it easy to make a pinhole with my hand and stare at a white part of my computer screen.

almost something on the winter solstice

benarimcdonald — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 06:43:59 +0000

What was supposed to happen: The solstice sun would set directly between two of the Channel Islands, San Miguel and Santa Rosa, making for a beautiful ‘accidental’ observation. Using Google maps and satellite imaging, I calculated that if I were to stand on Rincon Beach in Carpenteria, I would be aligned to see this solar event.

What actually happened: The sun set further south than I needed – the sun set over the north end of Santa Rosa, missing the channel between the islands completely. The good news is that in a few weeks it will climb back north and hit the sweet spot!

The difference between ‘supposed to’ and ‘actually’ is the result of inaccurate surveying based on general information rather than specific, detailed readings. While I clearly can’t rely only on web-based navigation and tools to identify and pinpoint cool observations, Google mapping is helpful to find potential alignments that ground work needs to verify.

Nothing will beat being on the spot, (ideally a days or weeks before on a crystal clear day) finding the bearing of where I want the sun to be and finding a match with a solar angle calculator. The Carpinteria alignment still has potential, however, since the winter solstice event was going to be a nice bonus, I’ll try again next year with a spot further north on Rincon beach.

ANY_CHARACTERS_HERE

feynman on light

benarimcdonald — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:50:22 +0000

Richard Feynman gets electromagnetic…

rods and cones – as they see it!

benarimcdonald — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:35:54 +0000

Here’s an attempt to graphically illustrate the unique sense capacity of rod and cone cells in our retina. Image 7 isolates cone cells and shows how their primary response is to color and detail information in the center of our vision. Image 8 show how rod cells respond to light values and object boundaries in the periphery of our visual field.

What is not shown here is how the efficencies of rods and cones change with the amount of available light. (Rod response is dominant at low light levels; cone response is dominant in bright conditions) More on this later…

car light (special guest photos!)

benarimcdonald — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:04:59 +0000

I’m happy to say this my first blog post using guest photos! Nathaniel Kean and Michael Knopoff (colleagues at Montalba Architects) submitted these photos of a light show that appeared on a wall in the office. Luckily, this phenomenon captured more of their attention than the meeting they were in – and they were able to take a couple photos. The light, they claim, was reflected from a car parked outside the office. What takes this over the top is the red which came from light reflected off the car’s tail lights.

flight light

benarimcdonald — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 05:56:58 +0000

Flying north to Oregon in the late evening with the overhead lights off, the cabin glowed indirectly from the horizontal sun. An accidental Ronchamp! Wide, diffuse glow from small apertures is a wonderful thing.