The purpose of this project is to analyze the various ways that daylight interacts with our daily lives. It is true that daylight used to be much more important than it is today; for example, the main deity of the ancient Egyptians was the sun god, Ra. If the sun did not rise each day, no one would have been able to see, and there would have been no sunlight to help the crops grow – and to allow the people to survive. For this reason, eclipses were much more frightening to ancient peoples than they are in modern times, as the disappearance (or darkening) of the sun during normal daylight hours meant a major threat to existence. People did not know when the next eclipses would occur, as they do today, and so when they did happen, terror resulted. Mark Twain made note of this terror when he had his protagonist in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court take advantage of an eclipse to take power in the kingdom over Merlin. Because he was aware of the date of the eclipses of the time (thanks to a lucky decision to memorize eclipse dates from his own almanac, before he went back in time), he was able to claim his own ability to blot out the sun. When the eclipse happened, he looked like a powerful wizard.
In modern times, daylight is still a powerful force. It tends to control our moods; in the winter, when daylight savings time has gone away, and it gets dark right after we get out of work, we tend to be more depressed than we are during the months with more sunlight. It also has health benefits, as those who stay indoors are more likely to suffer from Vitamin D deficiencies than those who carry out some outdoor activity each day. Too much daylight, of course, can lead to skin cancer, if you do not put on sunscreen, so there is a healthy balance to find. Daylight also affects the viability of different plant species in different parts of the world; there are some plants that require direct sunlight during most of the day, and there are others that only thrive in indirect sunlight, as the sun’s rays are too powerful for the plant to remain healthy. Machines operate differently outside during the day, as the ambient light can change the abilities that machines have to “see” items around them. Lighting also affects the discipline of photography, as the complete approach to the picture, including such items as exposure time, use of flash, and shutter speed all have to do with the amount of sunlight and the direction from which the sunlight is coming in relation to the object or person being photographed.
References
Aldridge, A.O. (???) Franklin’s Essay in Daylight Saving. ????
Braverman, B. (2004). LitePanels lighting kits. ????
Butz, B. (2010). Sneak attack. Outdoor Life November 2010: HP1-HP4.
Geizler, M. (2007). Portraits in broad daylight. PSA Journal August 2007: 22-25.
Johnson, H. (2010). Way too cool. EDN 4 February 2010: 14.
Kittler, R., Kocifaj, M. and Derula, S. The 250th anniversary of daylight science: Looking back and
looking forward. Lighting Res. Technol. 42: 479-486.
Kolodny, L. (2005). The best sunset provision ever. Inc. October 2005: 34.
Loach, K. (1970). Shade tolerance in tree seedlings. New Phytol. 69: 273-286.
Neven, D., Nuttall, R. and Seabright, P. (1993). Merger in daylight: The economics and politics of
European merger control. London: Centre for Economic Policy Research.
Sahragard, N. and Ramli, A. R.B. (2009). A review on algorithms and techniques for outdoor
machine vision. European Journal of Science Research 34(1), 125-131.
Each of these sources will play a significant role in the development of this paper. The essay on Benjamin Franklin’s idea for a daylight savings time during the year is an instructive look at one of the most prophetically minded thinkers in American history. His inventions were the fruit of an ingenious mind that also laid the foundation for much of the new nation’s political and cultural institutions. The review of the lighting kits for home and outdoor use are important because they show the lengths to which people will go in order to bring more ambient light into their lives. The home kits will bring soft light to a front yard; however, since people spend almost no time outside in their yards, in modern times, particularly after dark, and since there are very few people who will walk by of an evening, it is worth asking whether these light kits are worth the expense. After all, the residents don’t gain any benefit, and passersby don’t appear to gain from the having the extra light. With outdoor light kits, oftentimes the intended goal is to enhance visibility for fishermen down into the water.
The article about portraits in daylight is about the ways that photography differs when there is enough natural light for the photographer to be able to leave his flash in the bag. One’s entire appearance changes radically between daytime and nighttime photography; even with the invention of electric lights, the softer light of daytime in comparison to indoor lighting imbues photographs with a completely different aura.
The Kittler article has to do with a history of daylight research over time. This will provide entry points into many of the smaller subtopics that have to do with daylight and its interactions with our lives.
There are also some articles that use daylight as a metaphor, rather than as a literal element under study. One is the “sunset provisions” that have to do with what happens when a particular law or practice is going to come to an end. It might be that a set of tax breaks is going to expire at the end of the year, or that a particular blue-ribbon panel is only supposed to work for a set period of time. When those entities come to an end, the “sunset provisions” come into play and govern the transition into the next set of practices. The article discussing “daylight” with regard to “mergers” has to do with the transparency of the transactions – if they happen honestly and openly, then they are said to have “daylight” that allows observers (and investors) to know exactly what is going on.
Taken all together, these articles will provide an overview of the literal and figurative meanings of daylight, along with their significance for our culture. Even though electric light has rendered sunlight less important than it once was, daylight is still a force that is deserving of study and research.
