Lights of LA: Essay on the Impact of Light on Urban Environments

This essay, titled "Lights of LA," delves into the multifaceted role of light in shaping the urban environment of Los Angeles. It explores the significance of both natural and artificial light sources, from the sun's influence to the impact of streetlights and modern illumination technologies. The author examines how light defines the city's character, creates distinct moods, and influences perceptions of space and time. The essay references various artists, writers, and films to illustrate the poetic and mysterious qualities of light in LA, highlighting the contrast between metropolitan areas and coastal regions. It also touches upon the historical evolution of lighting, from candles and lanterns to advanced LED systems. The author also shares a personal reflection on the role of light in their own perception of the environment, emphasizing its emotional impact and the sense of nostalgia evoked by the city's nighttime illumination. The essay concludes by emphasizing the transformative power of light in Los Angeles, highlighting its ability to create a unique urban narrative.

Running head: LIGHTS OF LA
Lights of LA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
“Light” is one of the most important source of energy, it gives life and it gives us the
vision of the world we stay in. Light is harmonious, the rhythmic movements of the colors
creates the vision (Blumberg). Light is something that communicates to our mind and
consciousness directly. Both natural and artificial lights have the most important role in our
lives. The primary natural source of light comes from the sun and that caused earth to create
environment and could be converted into food through photosynthesis. Now light comes in
various shapes and sizes and from different artificial sources (Mikuriya 76-80). The
discovery of fire by our ancestors was a crucial breakthrough for human development. Not
only fire gave them a chance to cook, it gave them a source of light, which helped them
survive in vicious conditions which would have never been possible without light. 1.5
million years later, light is still the most important part of our daily lives. It makes life easier,
it gives a different dimension of the world and it has a subtle poetic value to it (Cadava 66-
128).
Several artists, writers, poets and scholar has written the different aspects about lights.
Famous Italian painter Giovanni Baglione’s painting Chiaroscuro uses a strong contrast
between dark and light. The color play to separate the light from the dark was a breakthrough
art style in 1600s (Robertson 31-44). This technic is used by artist to achieve the volume in
an object, photographers and cinema effects are also based on Chiaroscuro (Crosby et al.
2068). One of Woody Allen’s film “Midnight in Paris” we can see the usage of such technics
to achieve a poetic note.
Like Paris in the movie Midnight in Paris. LA has its own character as shown in Pulp
Fiction. The city of Los Angles is a geographically diverse location. It has the Pacific Ocean
on one side and mountain as high as 10000 feet on the other side. L.A. is the most populated

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city in the state of California and second most populated in America. It is also a cultural,
commercial and financial hub of Southern California and is well known for its bay area and
the Hollywood entertainment industry (Yong 593-596). This vast diversity has made its way
to the usage of some really creative and unique and genius way to portray light. From the
usage of the old school street lamps, which gets us back to a nostalgia of the cobblestone
roads and the street lamps, to the now technologically advanced light effects (Rigolon et al.
576-591).
In ‘LA Glows’, the author, Lawrence Weschler describes the late afternoon light of
Los Angeles as “golden pink off the bay through the smog and onto the palm fronds” where
he catches both the aesthetic beauty of the light as well as its interaction with the environment
such as the smog and the palm fronds. The smog, he described as the ‘haze that fractures
light’, to explain the process of scintillation of light due to the smog. While describing the
shadows in the winter mornings, the author used the term ‘strong and crisp’ to explain how
the shadows were sharply contrasted to the environment1. Such description draws a vivid
mental picture of how light interacts with the LA environment.
Lights can be in various form and shapes and colors but light plays the most important
role in our lives. It communicates with our brain directly and vision being the most important
among all our senses, light is hence the most important thing. Light is what defines
something, it amplifies an objects character, it helps build a character of an object with no
definite purpose. The city lights are poetic and mysterious, such things were talked about by
many writers, directors and poets (Rigolon et al. 576-591). The city lights of L.A is as serene
as nostalgia itself. Starting from the commercial metropolitan areas to the bay areas, every
place has its character. These character of the city changes when there is no natural light, the
1 Weschler, Lawrence. "LA glows." New York Times (1998).

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artificial lights creates an aura of beauty and tranquility in the city life. Not only street lights
but several lights artistically or even casually placed inside buildings also adds on the
character of the city (Kühne 139-153).
Electricity is something that is in abundance, but it wasn’t like that when electricity
was scarce or before it was invented. Times like that, people used lights from candles, lantern
and oil lamps. The street lamps were the only source of bright light of some towns and this
source of light made a lot of people gather around and socialize in its vicinity. We still use
candles or lamps and it has a lot of sophistical value to it, light from fire is also considered
auspicious in most religion. Besides having as some might call it, an objective superficial
benefits. Artificial light is mandatory to continue free flowing lives. Everything is relied on
lights, hospitals, traffic signals, buildings, businesses, factories etc. (Choi 474-485). Lights in
the streets of L.A has a very mysterious contrasting touch to it. It has it brightly lit
metropolitan areas with glamorous buildings and businesses and restaurants, with fancy LED
lights and holographic projector to boast the technologically advanced systems, it also has the
darker areas with lesser lights. This sets a mood filled with mystery out of a detective novel.
L.A is very famous for its night life, this was only possible of the unique play with lights. The
street lights with the lights from cafes and restaurants sets a mood for the person walking
down the streets of L.A. Artificial lights has built the character of the city of LA. The
metropolitan landscape with advanced lights takes you to a future and the coastal areas takes
you back to the past. It’s like living in a time machine and this is the magical play of lights
(Edensor 217).
Natural light has made life possible and artificial lights has made life easier and more
convenient to live. Now light comes in the smallest of objects, small enough to be carried in
pockets. Torch lights help people be safe in the dark and also made working in the nights
possible, there are endless benefits of light (Mannoni 54). The city of Los Angles has seen a

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very rapid growth financially due to the Hollywood and entertainment industry and has made
a very rapid growth in the infrastructure in the city. The usage of lights has been modified
and amplified in this course of development. Now there are lights on the roads to help drivers
get better visual aid while driving, lights in small tube can help doctors in ways that was
never possible before and the control over light has helped creators and directors to achieve
the artistic goal. The glamorous life of L.A is very evident by the use of bright, fancy light
system. This creates a solid first impression when you enter the metropolitan areas of LA
(Edensor 422-438).
Conclusion
Light is what gives us vision, it is what gives life and it is what gives character to an
object. Light is the most important source of energy of our lives, we are dependent on not
only natural light, but also artificial lights. It gives a story about a place, it reflects the history
of the environment. It generates a mystery and it also teaches us the reality of the universe.
Light is how we perceive things. The city life of L.A complimented with different kinds of
lights has given us a story in our head which we can modify and evolve and change the way
we want to, the is what the magic of light is in the streets of LA. Light evolves LA in the
night, it adds the mysterious touch, the darker alleyway, the lesser lit bay areas and silver
mountains from the moon light.
My relation with light: Light has always played a vital role in how I perceived the
environment and its absence have for a long time brought into be a feeling of dread and
foreboding. The early morning light of the sunrise gives me a sense of peace, tranquility. The
sunlight makes me feel energetic and paints the world in a much vivid and colorful way.
However, the evening streetlights of LA gives me a sense of nostalgia and belonging to the
place, bathing the roads and the pavements in a golden yellow hue, illuminating the darkness

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of the night. I feel that the lights of LA enhance the beauty of the place, and the sunlight in
the morning and streetlights in the night brings about a different beauty of the city.

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References:
Blumberg, Hans. "Light as a Metaphor for Truth." (1993).
Cadava, Eduardo. Words of light: theses on the photography of history. Princeton University
Press, 2018.
Choi, Wonsik, et al. "The effects of the built environment, traffic patterns, and
micrometeorology on street level ultrafine particle concentrations at a block scale: Results
from multiple urban sites." Science of the Total Environment 553 (2016): 474-485.
Crosby, Grace H., Benjamin V. Tucker, and Laurier Fagnan. "The effect of chiaroscuro and
coup de glotte training on reducing the effects of intrinsic pitch in sung vowel transitions."
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 139.4 (2016): 2068-2068.
Edensor, Tim. "Lights, City, Action…." The SAGE Handbook of New Urban Studies (2017):
217.
Edensor, Tim. "The gloomy city: Rethinking the relationship between light and dark." Urban
Studies 52.3 (2015): 422-438.
Kühne, Olaf. "The streets of Los Angeles: Power and the infrastructure landscape."
Landscape Research 40.2 (2015): 139-153.
Mannoni, Laurent. The great art of light and shadow: Archaeology of the cinema. Royal
College of General Practitioners, 2015.
Mikuriya, Junko Theresa. A history of light: the idea of photography. Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2017.

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Rigolon, Alessandro, Zeynep Toker, and Nara Gasparian. "Who has more walkable routes to
parks? An environmental justice study of Safe Routes to Parks in neighborhoods of Los
Angeles." Journal of Urban Affairs 40.4 (2018): 576-591.
Robertson, Clare. "On the “Reform” of Painting: Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio." Art
and Reform in the Late Renaissance. Routledge, 2018. 31-44.
Weschler, Lawrence. "LA glows." New York Times (1998).
Yong, Amos. "Stephen Shapiro and Philip Barnard, Pentecostal Modernism: Lovecraft, Los
Angeles, and World-Systems Culture." (2018): 593-596.