A Bright Idea
We started a study of First John and decided to call it ‘Life in Community.’ To lead into a future project we used brackets to frame the “in”. The text design was very straight forward. My first thoughts for the graphical element for the art was a circle of circles. The colors would be different to represent diversity in the community. The circles would have also had a tie in to our logo, which could have led to some cool motion graphics. I did not like the way the circles looked, too sterile and corporate.
I spent that night thinking about it and came up with the light bulb concept. It tied into First John, it also was an easy illustration to show how in a community some are broken some put off dim light and some bright light.
The original concept was to use different types of bulbs to drive home the whole diversity aspect of it but in the end, I just used the same type of bulb due to time. I did several versions of the concept. The first one was the bulbs on white cords arranging them in a circle with two broken bulbs. It was hideous looking. I did not even keep any of the photos I shot of the layout.
I ended up shooting all the bulbs on a black background with a 36” soft box 2.5’ above the bulbs. I soldered a wire on the end of the base and drilled a hole in the screw base part of the base and soldered the wire in the hole. I shot the bulbs that were not on with a bulb on on either side of it so that the reflections were there. I wanted to shoot the bases all arranged in a circle so that the reflections of the soft box shifted with the arrangement of the bulbs but again, lack of time got in the way. I used a copy of the same base for each bulb except for the bases next to a broken bulb or a bulb that was out. On those I used a base that was shot without a bulb on next to it so the reflection would not be there.
I love it! The finished product and the process through which you discovered it. Thanks for the peek into your mind!
When I first saw this, I wondered if you had used some sort of stock photo for the lights, so it’s great to hear what went into it. I caught the symbolism between the light/dim/broken bulbs immediately.
Very well thought out!
Isaac, if you want to use my images I can get the raw versions to you.