Martin Knowles Photo/Media

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PSMW Illuminated Modernism

We photographers know a few things about the power of lighting to transform and inform one's experience of built space. One of my favourite ongoing installations during Modernism Week has been  Illuminated Modernism. About a dozen and a half historically significant buildings along Palm Canyon Drive have been specially illuminated for the week, both with standard gelled lights (of the sort I'd use to illuminate buildings for twilight exteriors), and with gobos that show the name of the architect and the date of construction for the building. This really changes the way you view the buildings as you drive into or out of town: through the addition of special lighting, a number of relatively banal buildings have become much more attractive, and some already cool buildings have become, well, even cooler. I've been thankful that the special lighting has been running all week, because it's given me several opportunities to go shoot twilight exteriors for the fun of it (you know you're an architectural photographer when you willingly subject yourself to the pressure of shooting twilight exteriors for fun, without a client paying you for it...) without the pressure of having to shoot everything in one night, which would be clearly impossible.

I'm thinking it would be great to do a version of this in Vancouver sometime, possibly for Vancouver Design Week. There would be a number of interesting challenges involved in doing this in an urban environment (apparently in the years they've been doing this, they have had a few Source4's go for a walk). If you think this would be a project you'd want to participate in, please let me know!