Every misfortune is an opportunity in disguise. I learned this the easy way on Tuesday, Aug. 27 after setting up my Ciao Tech LED light strip (available at the UConn Bookstore). I realized the LED strip was made of bright dots of red, green and blue light, each separated by about an inch. They changed colors by triggering the various lights on and off. Without seeing them directly, they looked great. However, under my lofted bed and above my desk, they were a bright eyesore!
To fix the issue, I taped half-sheets of standard printer paper to my bed frame about two inches away from the light strip, along its entire length. This dimmed the light without blocking it. It also created a perfect surface for projections of shadows, which is beautiful when your light source is composed of red, green and blue lights.
Before we get to the photos, let’s learn about light. There’s a reason the light strips alternate red, green and blue light; you can make just about any color by combining red, green and blue in different amounts. This is because humans have color receptors for red, green and blue light; we’re biologically built to process color in this way. For ease of explanation, let’s represent colors as three-digit numbers, where each digit is either 0 or 1. The first digit represents whether the red light is on (0 is off and 1 is on), the second whether green is on and the third blue. So, 100 is red, 010 is green and 001 is blue. 000 is black (all lights off) and 111 is white (all lights on). Where it gets interesting is when we have two of the three on. 110 makes yellow, 101 makes magenta, and 011 makes cyan (an interesting note — these are the primary colors used in printers!)
This is how pixels in modern displays, like those in your phone, laptop or TV, work. Instead of only having 0 or 1 for red, green and blue, each color value is represented by a number from 0 to 255. These numbers aren’t arbitrary; computers use a binary number system, equivalent to only using the digits 0 and 1, to represent all numbers; 0 is 00000000 in binary and 255 is 11111111. This allows for over 16.7 million (or 2^24) total colors!
In my string lights, if I selectively blocked red, green or blue, I could end up with beautiful combinations of the whole rainbow, making for abstract, artistic renditions of whichever object I placed between the lights and paper. I started by simply placing my hand between the lights and paper, rendering my hand in a beautiful color verse of red, green, blue, magenta, cyan, yellow and orange. I wanted to find some objects that would produce more interesting optical effects. Objects large enough to obstruct individual lights, while complex enough to do so in a unique way, were ideal. Varying transparency was also a big plus for the optical effects of the object. Ultimately, I found that my glasses, a Velcro loop twisted around a few times and a tape dispenser, proved to be the most intriguing.
I also wanted to play with projections of angled reflections and was planning on shattering a mirror for the reflective shards. However, I then learned this would bring me seven years of bad luck — which is apparently common knowledge. I also realized it may not be the best idea to indirectly encourage readers to shatter mirrors, ruin their next seven years and get bloody hands in the process from sharp mirror shards. I also thought it would be cool to try directing the light through prismatic materials and seeing how the light would interact, but I had none at my disposal.
I encourage anyone with lights like mine to try this out in their own dorm, especially if you have reflective or prismatic materials or actual photography skills and equipment. Just do so safely and follow your dorm’s rules on RGB light fixtures. All my photos were taken with an iPhone and without photography experience, so I’d imagine the ceiling for this idea extends much further than where my few photos set it.