Strolls Through Balboa Park

I went home this past weekend to go see Rocky Horror Show at the Old Globe and Hair's National Tour with my favorite lady back home, Haley. We saw a matinee performance of Rocky and decided to go on a walk through the park. If you're not familiar with San Diego, CA's Balboa Park, it has a lot of museums and Spanish architecture. My favorite time of day is when the sun starts going down and the lights start to come on. Haley and I walked around, being cheesy and romantic, and sometimes stopping to take pictures with my DSLR. Being a goof and wanting to impress her, I told her about lights and how intensity, color, etc. can change the atmosphere. I would have gone into the Rayleigh scattering, but the clouds had rolled in. Perhaps I'll save it for a beach sunset. It's wicked cheesy, I know, but whatever. Anyway, we were just sitting and I took in the lighting in the breezeways of all the buildings and how the color was very amber and the mood was warm. I then imagined if they used bright fluorescent. The imaginary breezeway in my head had a completely different mood. It was bland, almost irritating and very unpleasant. If I had taken Haley for a walk then, it would not have been as pleasant of a walk. We also looked at how they lit the buildings' architecture at night. There were a lot of shadows and texture. The buildings had an entirely different kind of beauty to them that you cannot find during the day when the contrast of light and shadow was diffused and less dramatic. I'm a night person, so I enjoyed being in the quiet park looking at the buildings. I grew up in San Diego and spent a lot of summers in the park, but I never get tired of seeing everything. Plus, I had a better appreciation for the lights I did see when I went there since I've started this class. Haley and I took a few pictures, but we left the park before it got too dark. Here are a few pictures from both the day, which was cloudy, resulting in very diffused light, and at the beginning of the sunset with all the mood lighting:

Jess A