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Lighten
Up
make
the most of your artificial lighting
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continued
from page 1
General ambient lighting
You know the ceiling light that came pre-installed in your
apartment, the one whose uniform but utterly unremarkable light seems
somehow both too dim for reading, and too glaring for parties? That
would fall into the general ambient category. Recessed track lighting,
fluorescent ceiling lighting, and those cheap halogen floor lamps that
are such a staple of dorm life are other examples of general ambient
lighting. The advantages of this sort of lighting are that 1) a few
sources of general ambient lighting usually come built-in to the
house/apartment, and 2) these sources can cast a moderately bright level
of light over a fairly large area. Adding more sources of general
ambient lighting can brighten an entire room, making small rooms appear
larger and dark-walled, dark-floored spaces feel a bit cozier. They also
even out the lighting in a room when you’re watching television, which
is a good thing, considering that the glare of the boob tube in contrast
to pitch black surrounds can strain your eyes and cause headaches.
Because these light sources illuminate over a large space, however, they
give you little control over any areas in a room that you might
especially like to highlight (a photograph, a painting, a sculpture,
your bookshelves). They also never seem to provide quite enough light
when you’re trying to perform tasks such as reading a book, writing a
letter, making a sketch, or working on some craft project.
Task/Spot lighting
Task/spot lamps, on the other hand, provide very bright, very
focused light that can be aimed to illuminate specific areas of interest
in a room. A task/spot light is generally a lamp whose bulb is
semi-enclosed in a reflective casing and whose head can be aimed in
various directions. Desk lamps, spotlights, floor lamps and track lamps
with adjustable heads all belong in this category.
When evaluating your lighting needs, think about where you sit in the
room when you’re doing those tasks that require good lighting. If you’ve
got a favorite comfy armchair where you like to curl up and read, it
would make sense to place a lamp with an adjustable head right next to
you, so that you can aim the light to fall directly over your book. Your
worktable too will require either a good desk lamp (lamps with halogen
bulbs are great, since they provide a clean, white light that’s quite
bright), or a bright hanging
project lamp (you’ll want something that reflects the light down,
rather than a hanging lamp that encloses the bulb in a translucent
shell). Any room in which you’ll be spending large amounts of time at
night will require some sort of task/spot lighting … you don’t want
to go blind straining to make out the words in that novel as you
struggle to read by insufficient light, now do you?
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