Week 3: Aquarium of the Pacific

Pretty recently, I went to Long Beach on a date with a cute boy. We spent the majority of the day at the Aquarium of the Pacific, where we pet ALL THE JELLYFISH... minus the stinging kind. However, it was awesome; the water was freezing and the jellyfish felt incredibly slimy and disgusting. In addition, the ones we got to caress (sensually) had just been fed and were glowing in the dark! Apparently their system for digestion illuminates their stomach and intestines, and being that most of their body is semi-translucent, it was really fascinating and kind of disgusting to see their food being digested.
However! I doubt the aquarium used any specific kind of lighting to accentuate their creatures, but the contrasting color of the jellyfish in opposition to the water and background in their tank was absolutely beautiful. There was light coming from the bottom of their tank, so as they swam up it got significantly darker, but their natural color that light reflects is absolutely stunning. Normally down light creates an effect to make something look frightening, but this had the exact opposite effect because of how soft the light hitting them was.

They also had a new penguin-o exhibit! And it was l'fantastic. That's fantastic in French, except not. There was a little cave type area to the exhibit, probably for small children, that the cute boy and I decided to climb into and watch the penguins swim over us and around us. It was around 4:00 PM and the sun hitting the water was coming through at the most beautiful angle. Here's my glamour shot of the penguin enjoying the sunlight. Isn't he beautiful? I loved all the blue and green in the tank and the natural gobo the light through the water is making. And those streaks of white light shining through those blues and greens is just stunning.
Lighting like this in a show would be extremely interesting and beautiful, if done right. I think you would need a mover so that you can get the movement of the water in the gobo. Also, semi-saturates and saturates would work well to create the atmosphere for water. I would have the mover be a light lavender, ideally.

So after the aquarium, we got a taste for seafood, so we went to Bubba Gump and ate an arm and a leg's worth of shrimp. Then, we were on our way home, but we got lost. We ended up near my sister's house, which is in San Pedro and very central to some great parks and hiking spots. We ended up going to visit the Korean Friendship Bell and park around sunset. We hiked around and found a bunker down the hill, which seemed interesting at first glance, but ended up being small and filthy. On our way back to the car, I stopped to take this photo. I thought it was something special that both the moon and sun are visible in one panoramic photograph. And that sunset was pretty romantic. I like the movement this photograph has to offer, with the white balance being greater on the left hand side opposite of where the sun is, and darker directly in front of the sun to contrast. But that moon over the Korean Friendship Bell with the rainbow cyc-like light mother nature is creating over the horizon just exemplifies the beauty of the moment, both internally and externally. I was there on a date with one of my best friends, which made it all the more special.

Normally, when I picture a source, like a moon or sun, I immediately jump to the idea of a par being a large source. But in this picture, while the sun could be either an Source 4 or par, the moon would definitely be a Source 4. Even so, I feel like I would also use a Source 4 for the sun and just flood it out. And a spectre-cyc would totally be great for this!
There's just so much that mother nature can do that I want to imitate. Mother nature is the ultimate.