Lighting Doctor

chihuly sculpture — Randall Whitehead visited the Chihuly Garden and Museum in Seattle.

Light and Glass: How Chihuly's Sculptures Capture Light

I was lucky enough to visit the Dale Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum in Seattle. His large-scale sculptures have always intrigued me. Part of it is the way light interacts with blown glass, making it…

Dale Chihuly, Chihuly, Randall Whitehead, Lighting Doctor

randall whitehead, the lighting doctor, museum lighting — Museums work to highlight their art with refreshed lighting, according to the Lighting Doctor.

Museum Lighting: Illuminating the Past

The museums that I grew up with were visually exhausting. They had bright white walls on which they installed art with super saturated and often dense colors. As my eyes tried to adjust between the…

Randall Whitehead, Lighting Doctor, Museum Lighting

Integrated Lighting Highlights Details in Art House

While we were all bingeing on Netflix there was one couple who were turning their home into an environmental art project. From the outside it is unassuming Victorian cottage. Once you open the front…

Randall Whitehead, Lighting Doctor

Randall Whitehead, the Lighting Doctor, chandeliers and pendants — LEDs allow designers and manufacturers to create fixtures that were not possible, using traditional light sources. Photo by Randall Whitehead

Lost in Transition

What differentiates a chandelier from a pendant? For me, the rule of thumb was that a chandelier had arms and a pendant fixture does not. It was also generally felt that chandeliers are more…

Randall Whitehead, The Lighting Doctor, chandelier, Pendant, LED

Lighting Functions — Different Lights for different purposes

A Tisket, A Task Light

Lighting really does have a language to it. There are terminologies to help us categorize the specific jobs they have in creating a cohesive lighting design. While we are now adjusting to some of…

Lighting Doctor, Randall Whitehead, four functions of light, light layering, task lighting

Stone wall and iron bookshelf with backlighting — This elegant stone wall is dramatically illuminated, using a wall grazer which projects a light straight down the very narrow beam spread. Photo: Randall Whitehead

It’s a Wash: Techniques for Evenly Illuminating Vertical Surfaces

Washing walls with light has become a whole lot easier. Before LEDs came along, you were pretty much stuck with track lights, using flood bulbs or recessed fixtures with reflectors and spread lenses…

LED, Lighting Doctor, color temperature, Color Rendering Index, Shelf lighting

Sculpture with lighting shining on it — When accent lighting is done effectively it moves people’s gaze throughout the space. Recessed adjustable fixtures, using LED MR 16 lamps, help add focus to the art and decorative objects. (Photo: Randall Whitehead)

Accentuate the Positive

Good lighting design uses various types of illumination to create an inviting overall environment. As you have heard me say before, the best lighting happens when you layer different types of…

Randall Whitehead, Lighting Doctor, accent lighting, decorative lighting, task lighting

Randall-Whitehead-Lighting-Doctor-Lighting-and-Decor — Wall colors, wood finishes and fabrics change in appearance under day and night lighting at very different color temperatures.

How Can You Transform Lighting From Day to Night

TIP 1: Day tripping Color temperature tells you the hue of illumination that a particular light source emits. The two color temperatures that we are most easily able to identify are incandescent (…

Randall Whitehead, Lighting Doctor, LED, Color Rendering Index, CRI

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