DOCSLIB.ORG

Photography for Architecture and Real Estate Page 01 Color, Color, Color

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Photography for Architecture and Real Estate Page 01 Color, Color, Color Photography For Architecture and Real Estate Page 01 Color, Color, Color As you work in architecture photography you will be presented with locations that require you to manage the color. It is imperative that you learn to match your strobe lights to the ambient lights sources and sometimes that is easier said than done. The light that exists all around us is ambient or available light. The sun, light from a streetlight, and the interior lighting in the building are all considered ambient light. Often times these light sources are not the same color as daylight having a different Kelvin temperature. Each of these light sources, such as florescent, sodium vapor, mercury vapor, and incandescent all have a differ- ent color spectrum. When one of these is the main light source in the building you are photographing and using day- light settings on your digital camera, you will have a color shift in the direction of that light sources color temperature. For example, Cool White fluorescence tends to turn green while sodium vapor's are very amber in color and with daylight settings the picture will take on that color shift. If I am shooting for a home builder for example and one wall that is white has a color shift they may ask what I am thinking. What if you are shooting for Miller Paint and capturing home interi- ors? If the color balance due to light sources makes the paints off color, there lies another prob- lem. Managing color is not that difficult. You essentially determine what the color balance is for the available lights and mixed with any daylight, then make a determination on how to correct this. As a photographer you need to recognize color issues and take action to correct for it. If you are a digital photographer you’re certainly aware of auto white balance (AWB) and custom white balance (CWB) settings on your digital camera and these can work pretty well, but only in a few situations. All photos and text © Charlie Borland, all rights reserved worldwide. No form of reproduction or usage - including copying, altering, or saving of digital image and text files - is permitted without the express written permission of Charlie Borland Photography For Architecture and Real Estate Page 02 For example if you were shooting a house interior that had daylight coming through the window with tungsten ceiling spotlights and a florescent fixture in the kitchen you actually have three dif- ferent light sources and color temperatures. So the question becomes "which one do you set your custom white balance to?" Auto white balance does a pretty good job of compromising but in this situation the camera can be fooled if there's a heavy emphasis in one particular light source. For many photographers set- ting the camera to auto white balance is the solution, but it does not fix color, it just finds a compromise and in situations like I just described, the result is less than optimal. The photogra- pher has to spend quite a bit of time on the computer adjusting incorrect colors. Here is an example of mixed light: day- light from the windows, fluorescent in the kitchen, and tungsten in the dining room. Very off-color. All photos and text © Charlie Borland, all rights reserved worldwide. No form of reproduction or usage - including copying, altering, or saving of digital image and text files - is permitted without the express written permission of Charlie Borland Photography For Architecture and Real Estate Page 03 The presets on digital cameras are rarely much help either and they are for JPEG anyway, not RAW. You should be shooting RAW for sure! The color coming from a green fluorescent light fix- ture mixed with a little bit of window light creates a whole new color so neither the preset for florescent or daylight presets will achieve the desired results in these mixed light situations. There are other options that you can pursue to obtain good color balance within your scene. One is to overpower the ambient light with strobes and use a fast shutter speed which denies the ambient light into your exposure, but this often results in an unreal looking photograph. Am- bient light is real light and often is needed in creating a photograph that is believable so by eliminating that light in your scene you create an unrealistic and unbelievable image. Here are two examples shot in a home and showing a color shift. The image on the left is uncor- rected while the image right used a color meter to more accurately compensation for the color shift. All photos and text © Charlie Borland, all rights reserved worldwide. No form of reproduction or usage - including copying, altering, or saving of digital image and text files - is permitted without the express written permission of Charlie Borland Photography For Architecture and Real Estate Page 04 Ambient Light: Using it and Correcting for it. As mentioned previously, Ambient light is available light and often, light you have no control over. Sometimes you can turn indoor ambient light off, but its when you can’t, that making ad- justments in your shooting approach are required. Sources could include lights that are tungsten, sodium or mercury vapor, fluorescent, and often there is a combination of more than one of these light sources at a location. These days, most homes you will photograph will have Tungsten colored lights and occasionally fluorescents. Each light source has a color and it’s rated in Kelvin Color Temperature with daylight being 5500K. Tungsten at 3200K is amber, sodium vapor are very orange/red around 2100K, and Metal Halide are closer to daylight. (3.1)Kelvin temperature color relationship: Amber warmer warm Daylight cool cooler blueish blue 3200K 3800K 4500K 5500K 6200k 6800 7500K 8000K Kelvin is used as a measurement standard and is most often associated with the measurement of color temperature of light sources Color temperature is based upon the principle that a black body radiator emits light whose color depends on the temperature of the radiator. Black bodies with temperatures below about 4000 K appear reddish whereas those above about 7500 K ap- pear bluish. Color temperature is important in the fields of image projection and photography where a color temperature of approximately 5500 K is required to match “daylight” film emul- sions. Digital still works this way but is more flexible. All photos and text © Charlie Borland, all rights reserved worldwide. No form of reproduction or usage - including copying, altering, or saving of digital image and text files - is permitted without the express written permission of Charlie Borland Photography For Architecture and Real Estate Page 05 There are different fluorescent lights, but the most common is Cool White. They have a Kelvin temperature around 4000K, warmer than daylight, but they also produces a green cast. Fluores- cents not only need a correction for the blue/red shift, but need filtration to bring the green part of the spectrum into line. (there are lots of fluorescent light colors with cool white the most common) For the sake of explaining color theory, this lesson will illustrate points as if you were shooting with daylight film. I’ll address digital white balance later in this lesson. We will discuss first, how to filter for ambient light before we address adding strobes to a shoot setup. (3.2)The following is a color chart of light sources and their respective Kelvin temperature. Artificial Light sources: Candle Flame 1800K Sodium Vapor 2100K 40 Watt Bulb 2600K 75 Watt Bulb 2800K 100Watt Bulb 2900K 200 Watt Bulb 3000K Tungsten 3200K Mercury Vapor 3300K Photoflood Lamp 3400K Carbon Arc 5000K H.M.I. 5500K Daylight: Sunlight, sunrise or sunset 2800-3000K Sunlight; one hour after sunrise/sunset 3200-3400K Sunlight; two hours after sunrise/before sunset 3900-4100K Direct sunlight midday 5000-5500K Overcastsky 6000-8000K All photos and text © Charlie Borland, all rights reserved worldwide. No form of reproduction or usage - including copying, altering, or saving of digital image and text files - is permitted without the express written permission of Charlie Borland Photography For Architecture and Real Estate Page 06 An example: Let’s say you go into a office to photograph the interior. The first thing you need to do is deter- mine how much ambient light you will use. Since you are shooting an architectural interior then you will use ambient light to achieve a natural lighting feel. Determine next, what the color balance is before you even think about setting up your strobes. You can do this by looking at the light sources and the markings on the tubes. By using a color temperature meter and I use the Minolta color meter. These are not made anymore so the Se- konic Pro Digi is the best out there. Once you have determined where you will be photographing and know that you will be mixing your daylight strobes with ambient light, you take a color meter reading to determine what you will be dealing with. If your reading is 4000K, that tells you that the light is warmer than day- light. Remember that Tungsten is amber and rated 3200K, so 4000k is on the way to becoming Tungsten. If you took a pic- ture now with a daylight WB it would have a slight amber cast. The color wheel is universal in its meaning and works here just as easily. If your ambient light is green you add magenta, the opposite of green, to eliminate the green shift. This principal works the same no matter the color. Now we don’t have an option to add Magenta on our cameras unless you dig in deep to the menus.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Lighting Efficiency CLIMATE TECHBOOK
    Lighting Efficiency CLIMATE TECHBOOK Quick Facts Lighting accounts for about 11 percent of energy use in residential buildings and 18 percent in commercial buildings. Both conserving lighting use and adopting more efficient technologies can yield substantial energy savings. Some of these technologies and practices have no up-front cost at all, and others pay for themselves over time in the form of lower utility bills. In addition to helping reduce energy use, and therefore greenhouse gas emissions, other benefits may include better reading and working conditions and reduced light pollution. New lighting technologies are many times more efficient than traditional technologies such as incandescent bulbs, and switching to newer technologies can result in substantial net energy use reduction, and associated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. A 2008 study for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) revealed that using light emitting diodes (LEDs) for niche purposes in which it is currently feasible would save enough electricity to equal the output of 27 coal power plants. Background Nearly all of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the residential and commercial sectors can be attributed to energy use in buildings (see CLIMATE TECHBOOK: Residential and Commercial Sectors Overview). Embodied energy – which goes into the materials, transportation, and labor used to construct the building – makes up the next largest portion. Even so, existing technology and practices can be used to make both new and existing buildings significantly more efficient in their energy use, and can even be used in the design of net zero energy buildings—buildings that use design and efficiency measures to reduce energy needs dramatically and rely on renewable energy sources to meet remaining demand.
    [Show full text]
  • Lighting Journey
    Your journey to a Lighting Career DESIGNED BY HURLBUT ACADEMY Creating Depth, Mood and Emotion with Lighting DIY Home Depot Lights Parts 1 & 2 Lighting Large Day Interiors, DIY Lighting, Essential Tools Lighting For Specific Camera Blocking LOCATION LIGHTING SET LIGHTING S C I S A B E Day Exteriors: Shaping and Day Interiors: How to Light an H Wide-shots and Controlling Interview with 4 T The Scout Walk-talks Light Leko Lights N R Day Exteriors: A Day Interiors: Shaping Light E Shaping Natural Night Interiors: L The Build Part 1 Light w/ Negative and Shadow The Build Fill Shaping light & Day Interiors: Day Exteriors: Shadow: Nailing Night Interiors: The Build Part 2 Shaping high sun for the Close-Up The Finesse close ups Lighting From Above: The Night Interiors: Day Interiors: Day Exteriors: Softbox The Shoot The Shoot Part 1 Lighting w/ available light Mounting The Softbox Day Interiors: The Shoot Part 2 Wall Spreader Etiquette Lighting techniques - Building the perfect key light Lighting for 3 cameras: Why & How TV Gag: Kino Flo Lights The Police Light Gag LOCATION LIGHTING SET LIGHTING Day Exteriors: On Set: Fathers How to Light Day Interiors: Changing the and Daughters - Green Screen The Scout direction of the sun Blocking and Series: Lighting for close-ups Lighting for Small your subject R Interiors E H Day Interiors: On-set: Into the How to Light T The Build Part 1 On Set: Fathers R Badlands Green Screen and Daughters - U Character Series: Lighting F Understanding Development with Just two Your Camera T through camera lights I Day
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Lighting - DIG Workshop 14 June 2019
    Introduction to Lighting - DIG workshop 14 June 2019 Liana Bull & Robert King Turner Lighting is in many respects the most important aspect of photography, period. It’s essentially what our camera captures when we take a photograph, and it’s the manipulation of that light that ultimately determines what type of image is produced. There are infinite ways to use light in photography, each one creating a completely different result. Learning to understand and control how the light affects your images is arguably the single most important thing to improving your photography. Photography can be thought of as “painting with light.” The word photography is derived from Greek roots: “photos” meaning “light” and “graphe” meaning “drawing.” Without light, there would be no photography. Natural Light Photography, what does that even mean? Natural light photography is simply to record an image using the light that exists all around us. This can be direct sunlight, reflected sunlight or ambient sunlight Lighting is a key factor in creating a successful image. Lighting determines not only brightness and darkness, but also tone, mood and the atmosphere. Therefore it is necessary to control and manipulate light correctly in order to get the best texture, vibrancy of colour and luminosity on your subjects. Using Natural Light in Photography As a photographer, you get used to working with different kinds of lighting, including natural light, to produce high quality photos. Natural light can blend lightly within its environment to create a soft subtle light. Now, we aren’t always going to be so lucky and have ample light, the chance to pose a subject, or even have an option to be outdoors.
    [Show full text]
  • Rgb Portrait Kit Usage Instructions ®®
    RGB PORTRAIT KIT USAGE INSTRUCTIONS ®® LIGHT STANDS Unpack each light stand and loosen leg locks. Pull the upright section upwards while pushing the leg bracket down to extend the tripod legs. Tighten the knob on the leg bracket to secure the base. Loosen and extend each upright section to your desired height, then tighten to lock. Set the light on the top pin of the stand, and tighten the side knob of the light stand adapter to secure the light in place. AC POWER CORD Thread the included AC power cord into the AC receiver on the back of the light. Plug into nearby wall plug. Switch the “On/Off” button to the “On” position. The LED back z should illuminate. ATTACH AC POWER CORD OPEN LIGHT STANDS & MOUNT LIGHT HEAD SOFTBOX ATTACHMENT Unpack and open each softbox with care. Softboxes will open rapidly after tight packaging. OPEN & UNFOLD SOFTBOX Line up softbox opening with LED light head, and stretch and pull over the light head until it fits snugly over the light. STRETCH SOFTBOX OPENING OVER LIGHT HEAD Attach diffusion sheet to the front of the softbox by aligning the Velcro edges to the corners of the softbox, and press firmly to attach all edges. ATTACH FRONT DIFFUSER TO SOFTBOX VELCRO EDGES PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY MADE SIMPLE 800.624.8891 SAVAGEUNIVERSAL.COM USAGE INSTRUCTIONS ®® RGB PORTRAIT KIT DISPLAY REAR PANEL CONTROL If the light is paired with the Savage Light Manager app, a blue light next to the Bluetooth BLUETOOTH INDICATOR RGB INDICATOR icon on the back panel will be illuminated.
    [Show full text]
  • General Service Incandescent Lamps Data Availability RFI Comments
    Appliance Standards Awareness Project American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy National Consumer Law Center Consumer Federation of America Natural Resources Defense Council Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships Alliance to Save Energy Northwest Power & Conservation Council Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance October 16, 2016 Mr. Steven Chalk Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Appliance and Equipment Standards Program, U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office, EE-5B 1000 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20585-0121 Docket Number: EERE- 2017–BT–NOA–0052 Dear Mr. Chalk, This document constitutes the comments of Appliance Standards Awareness Project, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Federation of America, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, Alliance to Save Energy, Northwest Power & Conservation Council, and Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) “Energy Conservation Program: General Service Incandescent Lamps and Other Incandescent Lamps Request for Data” published in the Federal Register on August 15, 2017. (82 Fed. Reg. 38,613). The “Request for Data” appears to have been issued in response to a settlement agreement between the Department and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) to resolve a lawsuit brought by NEMA.1 We are concerned that the settlement and this Request for Data suggest an effort by the Department to work together with the major lighting companies to roll back lighting efficiency standards that apply beginning in 2020. Any attempt by DOE to circumvent the legally-required standards would be unlawful and would harm consumers.
    [Show full text]
  • Lighting 101
    Strobist ::: Apparatus minor • Cogitatio magis • Lux melior ::: Lighting 101 http://strobist.com ver. 12-2013 Introduction Welcome to Lighting 101. You may not realize it yet, but you have just stepped through a door that may change your photography forever. Over the past few years, over four million people from nearly every country in the world have begun their lighting education right here. And if they can do it, you can do it. Photography is literally writing with light. As you read through Lighting 101 you'll learn how to control every aspect of your electronic flash. If you can imagine it, you'll be able to create it. You'll learn how to take the removable flash that you probably already have on the top of your camera and use it off-camera to make beautiful, more three-dimensional photos. Once you learn the basics of controlling light, you'll quickly see that most lighting is intuitive, easy and fun. The Good News: The Gear Doesn't Cost Much (Photo by Strobist reader Sam Simon) Basic lighting gear is also refreshingly inexpensive. If you have a camera, lens and flash you have already done the spendy part. The gear needed to take your light off-camera is very inexpensive compared to your camera, your flash or even a single lens. By getting your flash off-camera, your images become more three-dimensional, more textural and more professional looking. All of the photos on this page were made by Strobist readers (who very recently may well have been exactly where you are right now) just lighting with small flashes.
    [Show full text]
  • Lighting and Studio Photography Version 2.0
    Lighting and Studio Photography Version 2.0 Matthew Chapman UNSW Photography Club [email protected] 1 LIGHTING BASICS Small light sources produce hard shadows Large light sources produce soft shadows ➜ N.B. Distance also affects effective size. LIGHTING BASICS 2 TYPES OF LIGHTING Sunlight ➜ Direct sunlight is hard (point source) ➜ Sky light is soft Tungsten/halogen lighting ➜ Electricity heats up filament which glows white hot ➜ Small hard source, but easy to add modifiers to direct light ➜ High power usage and heat output Fluorescent lighting ➜ Around 5 times more efficient than tungsten ➜ Complex/unpredictable colour spectrum TYPES OF LIGHTING 3 TYPES OF LIGHTING Flash lighting ➜ Very short high-intensity flash of light — much brighter than practically achievable with continuous lighting ➜ Must be synchronised with camera shutter ➜ hotshoe or X-sync connector ➜ Sometimes combined with a continuous modelling light to allow the photographer to visualise the lighting TYPES OF LIGHTING 4 DIRECTION OF LIGHT From the front: ➜ no shadows, flat From above: ➜ soft light can be useful for fill, like a cloudy sky ➜ hard light casts harsh shadows downwards From the side: ➜ emphasises form and texture From behind (rim lighting): ➜ emphasises the outline of the object ➜ typically use a grid to avoid light hitting the lens directly DIRECTION OF LIGHT 5 SHADOW CONTRAST A single light produces very deep shadows in areas where it does not reach. Reducing shadow contrast: ➜ Add a reflector to bounce light into the shadows ➜ Move the light further
    [Show full text]
  • Available Light
    Available Light Imogen Cunningham Natural light Low angle light Jan Groover Flash Light Bill Brandt Available light Brassai Spotlight Artists Type of light White light Matthew Hart Back light Candle light Lukas Kozmus High angle light Coloured light Projected light No light Light bulbs: Old or modern Available Light Photo-shoot Ideas Artificial light Projection Cello tape Shadows Light bulbs Candles and wax Pressed Glow Sticks Water Rubber bands Portraits Holding Light Close up Reflection Glow Paint Headlights Natural Light on skin Distortion Covered Bend Fire Body parts Smoke Torch Writing Twist Paint Wavy Scratches Curves Mood board Natural Light - Reflections Andre Kertesz André Kertész was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his ground- breaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of photojournalism. Expected by his family to work as a stockbroker, Kertész pursued photography independently as an autodidact, and his early work was published primarily in magazines, a major market in those years. This continued until much later in his life, when Kertész stopped accepting commissions. In Paris he worked for France's first illustrated magazine called VU. Involved with many young immigrant artists and the Dada movement, he achieved critical and commercial success. His career is generally divided into four periods, based on where he was working and his work was most prominently known.
    [Show full text]
  • The Magic Lantern Gazette Volume 24, Number 4 Winter 2012
    ISSN 1059-1249 The Magic Lantern Gazette Volume 24, Number 4 Winter 2012 The Magic Lantern Society of the United States and Canada www.magiclanternsociety.org The Editor’s Page 2 Winter Dissolving Views What a queer, pretty picture it is that greets me, as I turn my back to the rushing flakes, and so get my eyes open to look at it. Be- yond a wide swale, that yesterday was gold and green but now is glistening wintry white, rises a small eminence, where a dissolving view of trees and buildings is momentarily formed, then hidden, then brought out again, mirage-like, in the most curi- ous and dreamlike unreality, yet always with singular beauty. Gray is the only color, a soft, purplish, silvery gray; and the silhou- ette is the only style of drawing. By their outlines I guess that the wavering slender spike amid the glistening haze is the church steeple—that squarish blur the belfry of the court-house—the next irregular smudge a certain collection of house-roofs; but all seem as foreign and unsubstantial as shadows, so quaintly are they now clouded, now lightly revealed by the swirling, satiny snowflakes that fill the air with particle luminous in themselves yet obscuring the landscape. Ernest Ingersoll, “In March Weather,” Outlook, March 4, 1899 In our main feature article, John Davidson has contributed a Please check out the Magic Lantern Research Group at rather technical piece on the use of antique and modern electric https://www.zotero.org/groups/magic_lantern_research_group . lights for magic lantern projection. He has included not only This site is accessible to the public and best viewed using descriptions of the various sorts of lamps, but also experimen- Mozilla Firefox as the web browser.
    [Show full text]
  • Characterization of Gatewell Orifice Lighting at the Bonneville Dam Second Powerhouse and Compendium of Research on Light Guidance with Juvenile Salmonids
    PNNL-17210 Characterization of Gatewell Orifice Lighting at the Bonneville Dam Second Powerhouse and Compendium of Research on Light Guidance with Juvenile Salmonids FINAL REPORT RP Mueller MA Simmons September 2008 PNNL-17210 Characterization of Gatewell Orifice Lighting at the Bonneville Dam Second Powerhouse and Compendium of Research on Light Guidance with Juvenile Salmonids Final Report RP Mueller MA Simmons September 2008 Prepared for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, under a Government Order with the U.S. Department of Energy Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland, Washington 99352 Summary The study described in this report was conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to provide biologist and engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) with general design guidelines for using artificial lighting to enhance the passage of juvenile salmonids into the collection channel at the Bonneville Dam second powerhouse, managed by the USACE Portland District. The work comprised three primary objectives. The first was to review and synthesize all relevant studies in which artificial light was evaluated in a field or laboratory setting for its potential to guide fish at passage barriers within juvenile salmonid outmigration corridors. The second objective was to conduct a field study at the Bonneville Dam second powerhouse to evaluate the output levels of two artificial light sources at one orifice entrance within Gatewell 12. The third objective was to compare, in a laboratory setting, the performance of three light sources in terms of light intensity values. PNNL reviewed 36 sources in the published gray and peer-reviewed literature and prepared a synopsis that includes the study objectives, species and life stage, experimental conditions, type of lighting used, and a summary of the results.
    [Show full text]
  • Lesson 1 Understanding Equipment and Lighting Fundamentals
    Lighting for Commercial Photography An online workshop with Charlie Borland Charlie Borland's Lighting for Commercial Photography All photos and text © Charlie Borland, all rights reserved worldwide. No form of reproduction or usage - including copying, altering, or saving of digital image and text files - is permitted without the express written permission of Charlie Borland Page 2 Lesson #1: Understanding Light Lighting is a key ingredient in defining a successful photo. Without light, there would be no photography or life as we know it. Think of how light affects the world around us. The landscape is shaped by light and gives you a visual story in showing the layout of the land by defining textures within the landscape. In the studio, lighting for a portrait provides you the visual information about that person, the color of their hair, the shape of their face, and the color of their eyes, and tells us who they are. Lighting is used very successfully in photographing products in which the photo entices us to buy a product. Lighting techniques make food look better to us, a car more appealing, a model sexier. In this lesson, we will discuss a variety of different types of light, light quality, and light direction. Here is an example of one light source, the sun, lighting the landscape in Badlands NP. The low an- gle is creating a texture of light and shadow that gives the landscape a visual impression of the shape of the land. This is ambient light-light I have no control over. This industrial photograph, taken for an annual re- port used all artificial light and required 8 strobe heads with umbrellas, grids, and soft boxes as well as color gels on the lights to create this dramatic photograph Understanding light and how it works is a vital aspect of creating great photos.
    [Show full text]
  • Lighting Indoor Houseplants
    ■ ,VVXHG LQ IXUWKHUDQFH RI WKH &RRSHUDWLYH ([WHQVLRQ :RUN$FWV RI 0D\ DQG -XQH LQ FRRSHUDWLRQ ZLWK WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV 'HSDUWPHQWRI$JULFXOWXUH 'LUHFWRU&RRSHUDWLYH([WHQVLRQ8QLYHUVLW\RI0LVVRXUL&ROXPELD02 LAWN ■ ■ ■ DQHTXDORSSRUWXQLW\$'$LQVWLWXWLRQ H[WHQVLRQPLVVRXULHGX AND GARDEN Lighting Indoor Houseplants ouseplants are popular indoor decorations. Attractive and constantly changing, they add a Hsoftness of line and provide a bit of nature indoors. However, the ideal location of a plant for decoration may not be the ideal spot for plant growth. Lack of adequate light is the most common factor limiting the growth of plants in many areas of the home. Supplementary electric lighting is usually the easiest and least expensive way to provide enough light for plants that do not receive adequate natural light (Figure 1). Why do plants need light? Light provides the energy plants need to make the food required for them to grow and flower. Plants are the only organisms able to use the energy from light to produce sugars, starches and other substances needed by them as well as by other living organisms. Is light color important to plants? Certain colors or wavelengths of light are more important for plant growth than others. Leaves reflect and Figure 1. Artificial lighting, if properly designed, allows plants to be grown derive little energy from the yellow and green wavelengths indoors in nearly any setting. of the visible spectrum. In contrast, the red and blue wavelengths of the light spectrum are the most important heat for most plants and, if used, must be located some energy sources for plants. distance from the plants, thus reducing the intensity of the Plants growing outdoors, in greenhouses or close to light the plants receive.
    [Show full text]