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Posts Tagged ‘Shadow’

How to Create Dramatic Portraits with Shadow Photography [video]

10 May

The post How to Create Dramatic Portraits with Shadow Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

In this video by Shutterstock Tutorials, Robbie Janney shows you how to create dramatic portraits with shadow photography by using everyday objects to create those shadows.

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Shadow portraits

If you are after something different to do with your portraits, using shadows can create dramatic effects and make your photos stand out.

Shadow photography is an interesting niche to explore. You can achieve it by doing the following:

What you need:

  • A hard key light
  • A backlight (like a Quasar or similar)
  • Backdrop
  • Some cool household items that light can pass through (colanders, wicker baskets, film strips etc.

When shooting through the objects, the light can become softer instead of the hard light you are trying to achieve. This problem can be attributed to the light source’s aperture. Similar to your camera, when you want an image with nice sharp edges, you close your aperture to one of its smallest settings.

It’s the same with your light source. Just in this instance, you’re limiting the amount of light being put out, not absorbed. This limits the amount of diffraction that your light projects creating a harsher shadow when passing through your opaque object.

Most lights won’t have an aperture setting, so to cut down the beam of light, cut a hole in a piece of black cardboard and put that close to your light source using a stand to narrow the light beam. You can even change the shape of the hole in your cardboard for different effects.

Once you have your studio setup, and light ready, get creative with your shots by changing up the angle of light, subject, or the type of object you are sending the light through.

Experiment to get your best shots.

Have fun and share your shots in the comments below.

 

You may also find the following helpful:

  • 4 Beginner Tips for Creating Dramatic Portraits with One Flash
  • How to Create Dramatic Portraits in Your Garage
  • 5 Tips How to Set Up a Home Studio for Dramatic Portraits
  • How to Create Dark and Dramatic Backgrounds Using High-Speed Sync
  • How to Make a Dramatic Portrait with Light Painting Using Items Found in Your Home

 

The post How to Create Dramatic Portraits with Shadow Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.


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Vampire academy book 3 shadow kiss pdf

24 Aug

A vampire academy book 3 shadow kiss pdf outbreak of the living dead forces a group of strangers to band together. Unlike the rest of them, the two travelers become lost in a shifting maze of changing distances and suffocating darkness. After his passing in a car accident, Clary came in, this is an adaptation […]
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Behind the Shot: The Shadow Towers

01 Oct

In this article I’d like to take you on a nighttime adventure to the remote Torres Del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. This highly photographed park has attracted many photographers, and for good reason: it offers incredible mountainous landscapes and wonderful weather conditions, making for very interesting photography. 

There are many hiking routes in the park, which range from relatively easy to hard. After visiting Patagonia in 2014 to scout for my ‘Giants of the Andes’ workshop and Fitz Roy Hiking Annex, I regretted not being able to explore more of the hiking trails. I swore to go back and do some more hiking and shooting. I did just that earlier this year, just before guiding my groups. It was a bit of an adventure, and things didn’t always go as I had planned, but I got a few results I’m happy with. This article is about one of them, entitled ‘The Shadow Towers’.

‘The Shadow Towers’, Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine, Chile.
Canon 5Ds R, Samyang 14mm F2.8

Getting There and Being There

The Torres Del Paine are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine Massif. They are visible from long distances away, but to truly appreciate them, you really need to hike closer. It’s a day hike, taking a few hours to reach the base camp at the bottom of the Torres and another hour or two (depending on your fitness level) from camp to the lagoon from which I took the shot. This last leg is pretty tough with several hundred meters of elevation gain, along a path which is sometimes quite steep.

My planning went more or less like this: I had rented a car from El Calafate, Argentina, a few days before, and planned to drive all the way to Torres Del Paine and do the hike all in one go, if weather agreed. The moon was going to be full, and it was going to rise directly opposite the Torres, which I had hoped would illuminate the tops of the peaks and make for a very interestingly-lit shot. A couple of days beforehand the forecast indicated clear skies, and it seemed like everything was going as planned.

Back to El Calafate. I picked up my car early in the morning and made the 6-hour drive to the park. Upon reaching the start of the trail, I packed the necessities – tent, sleeping bag, some food and all my photography gear in a backpack (which weighed in at a not-too-comfortable 15+ Kg) and began hiking. The sun was shining strongly and I was wearing a light shirt and shorts for most of the hike, even though it was already autumn. 

The hike to base camp wasn’t too hard. It seemed long after all the driving but elevation gain was moderate, at least after the first several km. Beautiful sights were abundant throughout. After about 4 hours I reached camp in the late afternoon and set up my tent. I was a bit tired but I couldn’t get any peace. I decided to climb to the viewpoint that same evening.

I left the tent – and everything else which wasn’t crucial – in camp, and started the steep hike. It wasn’t easy at all with the heavy weight on my back, but I made the effort and after 1 or 1.5 hours, I was standing on the rocky edge of the glacial lagoon at the Torres viewpoint – Mirador de las Torres. Last light was approaching and I used the remaining visibility to find a sheltered place to put my sleeping bag for the night. I had heard that there was a cave nearby but didn’t have the time to find it, and so I settled for a spot surrounded by rocks, which would shelter me from strong winds. I did a bit of scouting around the lagoon before dark, to find a suitable composition.

My sheltered bivvy spot. Pardon the cell phone shot.

Darkness fell and I had to rest a bit from the long day and tough hike. I was waiting for the moon to rise when clouds began rolling in. I was very disappointed, since that meant I wasn’t going to get the kind of light I was hoping for. I kept on waiting and viewing the movement of the clouds and moon. At some point the moon began peeking between the clouds and producing interesting patches of light on the lagoon and the mountains. It was then that I knew I had an opportunity to create a good shot.

The light was changing very rapidly at this point, and due to the strong moonlight, I could see very contrasty shadow moving over the lagoon, which was exceptionally beautiful and exciting. I took several shots in the changing light. At some point, the moon was strongly illuminating the lagoon and foreground rocks, while the Torres themselves remained in shadow. It was an awesome sight, and I tried to convey what I saw with my camera.

Another shot I took on the same shoot, with different composition and light conditions.

After finishing my shoot I went back to the sleeping bag and rested a bit, hoping to shoot some more later with different light. But as it often is with nature photography, things began to deteriorate quickly. More and more clouds came over and I decided to try to get some sleep before trying again. I got perhaps half an hour of bad sleep when it started to rain on me. This was an unexpected turn of events and I was afraid I’d have to sleep in a wet sleeping bag, which was really not how I had planned to pass that night.

Luckily I had a very good sleeping bag (thank you Feathered Friends!) which was highly water resistant, and apart from some dampness in the zipper area, kept me protected and dry. Still, I have to admit lying there, hiding in the sleeping bag under pouring rain, utterly alone at night, more than an hour’s hike away from any other living soul, wasn’t too much fun. 

After a few hours or rain, the sun was about to rise. Sadly, the Torres were shrouded in fog by then, rendering them completely invisible. The hikers who were arriving to see the sunrise were disappointed. I packed my gear and hiked back down, all the way to the car. Even the 2-minute drive to the nearby restaurant was agony, but once I got my big, juicy hamburger I was a happy man.

Settings and Execution

I took this shot with my Canon 5DsR and Samyang 14mm F2.8 lens. The image is focus stacked from 2 exposures, since I used F2.8 and depth of field was quite small. One image was focused on the foreground rocks, the other on the mountains in the background. Since I used an ultra-wide angle lens, 2 images were enough to cover the depth range.
I used ISO 800 and a 13 second exposure. Here are the 2 original RAW files.

Composition

The main element in the composition is a virtual spiral running from the big rock on the right, through the foreground rocks and all the way to the mountains. Here’s an illustration.

I decided to leave a relatively large space above the Torres to show some more of the texture and movement on clouds, and to leave some room above the left peak.
The most important part of the image is the obscure silhouette of the Torres – giving it its mysterious feel, and, of course, its title.

Post Processing

As time goes by, I tend to do less and less post processing. This is both an aesthetic decision and an ideological one. The main things I put an emphasis on here are maintaining fidelity to the actual scene as I saw it and making sure the final image still looked like a night shot, while still keeping details in the dark areas.

The first thing I did was correct the lens aberrations using ACR’s profile correction. I also made a few global adjustments, shown below. No local adjustments were done.

I then saved the 2 files as TIFFs and went on to Photoshop. I put the images as layers and used Edit > Auto Align Layers to align them. After aligning, I cropped the image a bit.

As to the focus stacking itself: to get the sharp parts from both images, I used the eraser tool to expose the right section of each of the shots. This was done by eye.

At this stage I had a focus-stacked, almost complete image, needing but a few last adjustments. Firstly, since the image was still too bright (as visible in the histogram), I used the curves tool to darken the image with more emphasis on the lighter parts. I wanted a darker result, to better convey the night atmosphere and to be more realistic, all that without losing detail in the shadows.

After taking the contrast down in ACR, I wanted to take it back up a bit in a controllable fashion. To do this I used luminosity selections. I selected a mid-range mask and applied a levels adjustment layer on it. 

I also added a bit of local contrast using dodge and burn in LAB color mode, to avoid color shifts. I added some saturation, to bring out the natural colors in the lagoon and rocks, performed size reduction and some sharpening and I was done. 


Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram, Facebook and 500px, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates.

If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the most fascinating landscapes on earth with Erez as your guide, you’re welcome to take a look at his unique photography workshops around the world:

Land of Ice – Southern Iceland
Winter Paradise – Northern Iceland
Northern Spirits – The Lofoten Islands
Giants of the Andes and Fitz Roy Hiking Annex – Patagonia
Tales of Arctic Nights – Greenland 

Selected articles by Erez Marom:

  • Behind the Shot: Dark Matter
  • Mountain Magic: Shooting in the Lofoten Islands
  • Behind the Shot: Nautilus
  • Behind the Shot: Lost in Space
  • Behind the Shot: Spot the Shark
  • Quick Look: The Art of the Unforeground
  • Whatever it Doesn’t Take
  • Winds of Change: Shooting changing landscapes
  • On the Importance of Naming Images
  • Parallelism in Landscape Photography

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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LEGO Shadow Show: Masses of Toy Bricks Reveal Surprising Silhouettes

27 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

LEGO GIF

What looks like no more than an unweildy mass of Lego bricks stuck together into an abstract shape reveals itself to be not just one but two separate intricate shadow-casting designs. Artist John V. Muntean mounts his unusual sculptures on a special table to rotate them into just the right position in front of a spotlight so we can see what’s hidden within the positive and negative spaces created by the bricks.

LEGO Shadows 6

LEGO Shadows 1

The artist calls it a ‘magic angle sculpture,’ and it’s just the latest of an impressive collection he’s created over the past couple decades. This appears to be the first time he’s worked with Lego bricks, though – the rest are sculpted wood.

LEGO Shadows 5

lego sculpture 2

lego sculpture

“As a scientist and artist, I am interested in how perception influences our theory of the universe,” says Muntean in his artist statement. “A Magic Angle Sculpture appears to be nothing more than an abstract wooden carving, skewered with a rod and mounted on a base. however, when lit from above and rotated at the magic angle (54.74 degrees) it will cast three alternating shadows. Every 120 degrees of rotation, the amorphous shadows evolve into independent forms. Our scientific interpretation of nature often depends upon our point of view. Perspective matters.”

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Shadow Graffiti: Typographic Sundial Transforms Building Facade

25 Jun

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

typographic sundial 1

Integrating the shadows cast by everything from stop signs to public benches into street art often requires the luck of seeing the piece in action at just the right time of day, when the shadow is in just the right spot for everything to line up as intended. Catching it in action feels like serendipity and adds a little bit of magic to ordinary urban settings. But in the case of this particular work of shadow art, you could literally stand in front of it all day and just watch it transform before your eyes. The lettering attached to the facade of a building in India’s Lodhi District changes its angle as the sun moves across the sky, acting like a sundial.

typographic sundial 3

typographic sundial 2

‘Time Changes Everything’ by Indian street artist Daku requires the sun’s harsh light in this location and the stark white facade of the building to even be visible to passersby, virtually disappearing on a cloudy day or at night. Get close to the wall and look up, however, and you’ll get a new perspective on the piece, viewing the words upside-down. The theme relates to the passage of time, with words including ‘age,’ ‘illusion,’ ‘season,’ aim’ and ‘memory.’ They start out in italics and then shift into prime legibility at noon before leaning in the other direction.

typographic sundial 4

The installation is part of the first dedicated public art district in India, turning the neighborhood into a gallery that’s available to everyone. ST+ART India invited 25 local and international street artists to contribute to the project, which aims to make art accessible for wider audiences “while having a positive impact on society.” Check out more of Daku’s work on Instagram.

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Lighting Up the Dark Side: Star Wars Shadow Art Portraits

24 Dec

[ By Steph in Drawing & Digital. ]

star wars shadow 1

Balls of aluminum foil transform into Darth Vader and irregular chunks of chocolate cookies covered in rainbow sprinkles become the Star Wars logo when a single light source is shined upon them in just the right way. Artist ‘Red’ Hong Yi of Malaysia created an entire series of Star Wars shadow art with a range of materials, from feathers to discarded computer guts.

star wars shadow art 7

The artist turns on a lamp and begins attaching her bits of materials to pieces of wire embedded in a base, watching the shadows on a plain white wall until her seemingly random compositions start to make visual sense. Some of the portrait are more complex than others; a Stormtrooper made of cotton is simple and graphic while a Yoda silhouette crafted of nothing more than a handful of leaves  and weeds seems as if it could spring to life.

star wars shadow art 5

star wars shadow art 3

star wars shadow art 4

“It started with a spark of curiosity and then a lot of tweaks and experiments,” says the artist on her Instagram. “As an artist/designer, I’ve learned to not be afraid of experimenting and failing; you’ll get better at what you do with each step you take. Our responsibility as creators is to sit down and create again and again. May the force be with you!”

star wars shadow art 2

star wars shadow art 6

Get inspired with 24 more amazing works of shadow art, and follow Red Hong Yi on Instagram for more creations made from unexpected materials, like tea bag portraits and intricate arrangements of edible items.

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How to Use Shadow and Contrast to Create Dramatic Images

24 Dec

shadow and contrast

You can use shadow and contrast to create dramatic images. The key is to forget about shadow detail. You don’t need it. Shadows are meant to be dark and mysterious. This is good – it leaves something to the viewer’s imagination.

Utilize the dynamic range of your sensor. Expose for the highlights, and let the shadows fall where they will. If the light is strong enough, the shadows will contain very little detail.

Harsh light can make dramatic images

I took the following photo in Bolivia. The sun was sinking behind me, casting a strong shadow that had started to touch the underneath of the old car. The shadow fills the bottom third of the image. We don’t need detail in the shadow, although a little doesn’t hurt. Shoot in Raw format, and in most cases you’ll be able to pull some shadow detail out in post-processing, giving you a choice.

shadow and contrast

When I see a dramatic image like this, with strong shadows, my immediate instinct is to convert it to black and white. High contrast scenes look great in monochrome. There’s something about removing colour that emphasizes the depth of the shadows, and the drama of the composition. You can add impact by increasing contrast in Lightroom and emphasizing texture using the Clarity slider. Here’s my black and white conversion of the photo above.

shadow and contrast

Look for naturally contrasty scenes

I took the next photo indoors, in an old manor house that had been converted to a museum. The apples were lit by light coming through a window. The windows were small, so the interior of the room was naturally dark, which is why there is so little detail in the background. It’s a high contrast scene – the area lit by window light ,is much brighter than the rest of the scene.

shadow and contrast

Here’s the same image converted to black and white. Without colour, the emphasis is on the textures and shadows.

shadow and contrast

Silhouettes

The following photo of an approaching storm uses also uses shadow and contrast. The mountains are backlit and silhouetted. The approaching storm clouds are dark and ominous. A brightly lit strip of sky fills the gap between the two dark areas. A silhouetted telegraph pole forms a natural focal point. The drama of the light has created a dramatic image.

shadow and contrast

The image is naturally monochromatic, and converts well to black and white.

shadow and contrast

There are lots of shadows in this seascape. But the ones that caught my eye were the silhouetted figures on the right. After I had set up the shot, two children walked across the beach, and climbed up on the rock. I used a long shutter speed (30 seconds) to blur the water, which also blurred the silhouetted children. I was fortunate because the figures add human interest and scale to the scene. They are a natural focal point that pulls the eye across the photo.

shadow and contrast

shadow and contrast

It also converted well to black and white.

The final image is also one that uses shadow to create mystery and drama. I focused on the grass on the foreground, set a wide aperture, and let the sun go out of focus. I adjusted the white balance in Lightroom to emphasize the warmth of the setting sun. This image is different from the others in that the colour is an important part of the composition and it doesn’t work as well in black and white.

shadow and contrast

Conclusion

One of my aims with this article is to dispel the idea that it is essential to capture lots of shadow detail, and that if you fail to do so, it is some kind of technical shortcoming. Not so – let’s celebrate the fact that camera sensors don’t capture the full range of brightness that our eyes are capable of seeing. Let’s use the interplay of light and shadow to create interesting and dynamic compositions. Let’s create some mystery and leave gaps for the viewer’s imagination to fill in.

Do you use shadows in your images? Please share your images with lots of shadow and contrast in the comments below.


Mastering Composition ebookMastering Composition

My new ebook Mastering Composition will help you learn to see and compose photos better. It takes you on a journey beyond the rule of thirds, exploring the principles of composition you need to understand in order to make beautiful images.

 

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24 Dark and Mysterious Shadow Images

17 Jul

Light and shadow are key in photography. You cannot have one without the other, and how light is used in the image set the tone and mood of it. Images with high contrast, and strong shadows can be very dramatic.

Have a look and see if you agree that these shadow images have a certain mystique about them.

I’ll start off with a few of my own images taken on a “shadows” themed photo walk a couple years ago:

Darlene Hildebrandt

By Darlene Hildebrandt

Darlene Hildebrandt

By Darlene Hildebrandt

Darlene Hildebrandt

By Darlene Hildebrandt

Hapal

By hapal

Magdalena Roeseler

By Magdalena Roeseler

Bryon Lippincott

By Bryon Lippincott

Ian Sane

By Ian Sane

Photograph O O by Jianwei Yang on 500px

O O by Jianwei Yang on 500px

Photograph Round shadows by Junichi Hakoyama on 500px
Round shadows by Junichi Hakoyama on 500px

Photograph Living Shadows by Jorge Pena on 500px

Living Shadows by Jorge Pena on 500px

Photograph Lead or Follow? by Krystian Olszanski on 500px
Lead or Follow? by Krystian Olszanski on 500px

Photograph Afternoon Shadow by Joe Josephs on 500px

Afternoon Shadow by Joe Josephs on 500px

Photograph Untitled by Spyros Catramis on 500px

Untitled by Spyros Catramis on 500px

Photograph shadows of people by Mister Mark  on 500px

shadows of people by Mister Mark on 500px

Photograph They also get along by Ignasi Jansà on 500px

They also get along by Ignasi Jansà on 500px

Photograph Love by Candle Light by Ticknor Photo on 500px

Love by Candle Light by Ticknor Photo on 500px

Photograph Salsa Shadows by Joan Herwig on 500px

Salsa Shadows by Joan Herwig on 500px

Photograph Shadow dancing by Didier Vanspranghe on 500px

Shadow dancing by Didier Vanspranghe on 500px

Photograph dancing with lights by nave aviani on 500px

dancing with lights by nave aviani on 500px

Photograph ????? by umedust ?? on 500px

????? by umedust ?? on 500px

Photograph Shadowdance by Alex Noriega on 500px

Shadowdance by Alex Noriega on 500px

Photograph Protector ! by Mardy Suong Photography on 500px

Protector ! by Mardy Suong Photography on 500px

Photograph 58/365  Bottle Neck by Monika Bigelow on 500px

58/365 Bottle Neck by Monika Bigelow on 500px

Photograph Fork Shadow by Michaël Luitaud on 500px

Fork Shadow by Michaël Luitaud on 500px

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Drawing with Darkness: 24 Incredible Works of Shadow Art

25 Mar

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Shadow Art Dancing

How is it even possible that a mess of steel wires or a pile of useless scraps of trash can produce shadows that so perfectly mimic human faces and figures? Whether bringing forth unexpected shapes by combining abstract sculptures with a light source or exploring the psychological connotations of shadows, artists make light and darkness a physical element in each of these works.

Amazing Illusions by Kumi Yamashita

shadow art kumi 1

shadow art kumi 2

shadow art kumi 3

shadow art kumi 4

Faces appear out of the most unlikely shapes and materials, from scrunched fabric to numbers mounted on a wall, while figures spring out of thin strips of metal. Says artist Kumi Yamashita, “I sculpt using light and shadow. I construct single or multiple objects and place them in relation to a single light source. The complete artwork is therefore comprised of both the material (the solid objects) and the immaterial (the light or shadow.)”

Steel Wire Shadow Art by Larry Kagan

shadow art kagan 1

shadow art kagan 2

shadow art kagan 3

Though they do have a certain beauty in and of themselves, look at Larry Kagan’s wire sculptures on their own, without a light source, and you may find yourself scratching your head at what the word ‘art’ even means. But when they’re illuminated from just the right angle, they transform into something different altogether, becoming birds, insects, ladders and maps of the world.

Plasticine Body Cast Shadow by Rook Floro

shadow art rook 1

shadow art rook 2

Artist Rook Floro made a plasticine cast of his body to create this eerie shadow sculpture, which he displayed in a gallery while sitting nearby with his entire body painted black. “My sculpture/performance piece is inspired by Carl Jung’s psychological theory about the shadow. It concerns with the repressed ideas, weakness, and desires of oneself that the conscious mind refuses to acknowledge. It represents my ‘shadow’ which involves my hidden desires to be different and become perfect in y own right. We always feel the pressure to be perfect by everything around us such as the media, social network, advertisement, friends, and family.”

Interactive Shadow Picture Book by Megumi Kajiwara and Tathuhiko Nijima

shadow art book 1

shadow art book 2

shadow art book 3

This adorable Japanese children’s book by Megumi Kajiwara and Tathuhiko Nijima is enhanced with the use of a flashlight to bring out extra figures via pop-up silhouettes. The book is hand-made to order.

Dancing Shadow Sculptures by Laurent Craste
Shadow Art Dancing

Two static sculptures suddenly start to dance as a light source swings maniacally around them in this interactive art installation by Lauren Craste, created for the Chromatic festival in Montreal. It seems straightforward at first, but then the figures seem to take on a life of their own, moving in ways that don’t make sense. The secret is a hidden projector that tracks the movements of the light source to create certain effects.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Drawing With Darkness 24 Incredible Works Of Shadow Art

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Sunny Disposition: Computer-Aided Skyscraper Casts No Shadow

17 Mar

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

shadowless skyscraper concept design

With downtown densification usually comes a lack of light in surrounding spaces, leading one architecture firm to develop the world’s first algorithm-driven strategy to allow a tower to fully shed its shadow. Architects of NBBJ developed this set of adjacent skyscrapers that work in tandem to eliminate shade year-round in the spaces between them, proposing the pair for a prominent site in central London. As the simulation of No Shadow Tower illustrates below, considerations are made for all times of day, reflecting the passage of the sun through the sky from dawn until dusk.

computation daylight simulation

The model inputs are complex, using real sun-tracking data tied to a specific location (though easily changed) but also taking into account everything from basic physics and structural engineering to pubic spaces and programmatic functions for building users. At the same time, considerations must be made for diffusing any reflected light to avoid creating obnoxious glare or even lighting adjacent spaces, vehicles or objects on fire. Fortunately, it is easier than ever to implement a complex building shape with custom 3D-printed parts, as architects like Frank Gehry have increasingly demonstrated in recent years.

sunlight filled courtyard reflection

This proposal was inspired by the rapid growth of skyscrapers in areas like London, where 250 are currently planned or in progress, and New York City, where residents are resisting tall buildings that would cast long shadows over Central Park. Large-scale sunlight reflection can be found in built environments already, such as a mountain town in Norway found frequently or for long periods in shade during cold and dark winter months. Conversely, structures in hot climates could also be shaped to deflect sun from occupied spaces during warm summer months – shade and shadows can be shaped, in short, for different environmental conditions.

shadow free skyscraper

In this case, of course, the reflector is itself a building, which of course then casts a shadow of its own – arguably a limitation of the scheme. However, a series of structures could conceivably cancel shadows in sequence, creating multi-block solutions if designed in a coordinated fashion, the shape of each informed by the needs of the previous one in the series. Whether or not this particular pair of structures makes it past the conceptual phase, the idea behind them is powerful and the attitude could be applied more readily by light-sensitive architects down the line.

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