Reflection

I'm thinking about reflection.

I grew up with three brothers and for a long time throughout childhood, an easy way to mess with each other was to shine light reflected off a watch or phone in each other's faces.

In a show I'm currently working on, a character uses an iPad on stage and the lights cause fairly sizable spots of light to bounce around the stage as she moves the tablet.

Sometimes if I accidentally leave a CD in the passenger seat, it can glare into my eyes, making it extremely difficult to drive.

Light is really powerful. Obviously, when you think about the sun or football stadiums it's easy to acknowledge the power of light, but I'm awed by the way it can bounce off an inch of glass with such intensity. It's such a common (and usually irritating) phenomenon that we forget how unbelievable it is. Even after having taken this class and learned more about the science of light and reflection, I'm crazy impressed.

There is a unimaginably large ball of gas, millions of miles away, that has the potential to reflect off a watch-face and blind a driver, causing a car accident. I guess that's kind of a morbid hypothetical example, but I think its telling of how powerful and influential light can be. It's magic.