This week marks International Dark Sky Week 2019. It highlights the effects of light pollution on our lives, environment and (funnily enough) the sky. Prior to the introduction of artificial electric lighting the night sky was filled with endless amounts of stars, inspiring everything from art to religion and philosophy over the ages.

When we think of something that triggers our emotions, there’s always the first few things that come to mind; music, art, family and a personal one for me…food. These things all attribute to our daily emotional state and how we react to them.

One of the biggest challenges with working as lighting designers is the need to communicate our ideas to a client, architect and engineer. Light as a medium is invisible. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it, but what you do see is the result of light when it is reflected off a surface.

I’m currently in the throes of preparing course content for my Griffith College students for the new term starting next month. Looking at the material for my first lecture on lighting history, it is so impressive the explosion of lighting creativity at the end of the 19th Century, start of 20th. Electric lighting arrived on the scene with Thomas Edison’s light bulb in 1870. And was followed a myriad of new lighting technologies, and professions.