Book Reviews Redux

[sitelights]

I've decided to re-review the available books on the topic of low voltage outdoor lighting. The reviews on this topic that I have posted on amazon.com were aimed at the general reader and, of course amazon "owns" my reviews. The updated reviews will be more tightly focused on technical and design aspects of outdoor lighting with greater emphasis on the practicality and accuracy of information relating to the design/install process. The first of these new reviews was posted on 07.21.02 and the other 10 (or more) will appear as time permits.

The other reviews have since been posted under their titles or a descriptive heading. 06.24.04

[Eden Lights]

I will be looking forward to that. I wish the designers would get to gether and try to get a pictoral essay of outdoor lighting published. To inspire our clients and so on.

[sitelights]

In fact most of the books on outdoor lighting are mainly picture books. In my estimation 6 of the 11 books on my shelf are useful mostly for their photographs since their technical content merely supports the illustrations.

I'm of at least two minds on the idea of presenting a client with a catalog of gorgeous images. My right brain tells me that in reality most projects are not "portfolio" material. No matter how good your lighting skills are it is not reasonable to expect to be able to match the selected images found in some published books. Granted that some of the images chosen in the technically useful books are terrible but the images you'd show to a client may raise their expectations beyond the reality of the site. My left brain tells me that a less than ideal site can be transformed by lighting and, in effect, one can correct defects in the landscaping just as room can be made much more pleasant by remedial lighting only.

Early in my career I made the mistake of giving a copy of the then new Ortho book to a client. At the after-dark critique she pointed out that the image on the cover (superficially like the setting in her own garden) looked better than my results. I pointed out to her that the Ortho cover image [see attachment to review] used 8 light sources in a small area and that I had been limited to 2 by her budget. We sat at her dining room table while I placed my finger tip on each point source on the Ortho cover to protect my reputation.

A better way to illustrate lighting effects is to compile a photo portfolio of your own typical work. However there are difficulties to overcome when attempting night photography. The natural inclination is to photograph only your best work and so you wind up in the same predicament as using "ideal" images. Actually my own photo portfolio has not been added to since 1999 and I no longer use it much. I leave it in my station wagon when I speak to potential clients and drag it out reluctantly. A really good image such as the one on the "contact" page of my web site is quite expensive. A professional photographer and I spent 4 hours (2 travel, 2 on site) to capture that image with his Leica 4X5 with digital back downloading multiple megabyte files onto his Apple laptop. The image was for publication and cost me $700.00