lighting an exhibition space

[notter]

Greetings,

Not sure if this is the correct forum to post this--

I will have an exhibition in the spring of my father's photography, and it will be in a "parlor room" in an old, but stylish building.

Since the space is not set up to be a gallery, there is no track/spot lighting available. If the weather is good, there will be natural light for about half the lenght of the room.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to light a room like this, in order to enhance the images displayed on the wall?

It may be possible to use some type of clip-on spots attached to a pipe on the ceiling.

Thanks in advance--

Best wishes,

Ned Otter

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Greetings,

Not sure if this is the correct forum to post this--

I will have an exhibition in the spring of my father's photography, and it will be in a "parlor room" in an old, but stylish building.

Since the space is not set up to be a gallery, there is no track/spot lighting available. If the weather is good, there will be natural light for about half the lenght of the room.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to light a room like this, in order to enhance the images displayed on the wall?

It may be possible to use some type of clip-on spots attached to a pipe on the ceiling.

Thanks in advance--

Best wishes,

Ned Otter

You are obviously aware of spotlights on tracks and the type of lighting they create. If you can't actually use these, you need to find the closest alternative, which would almost certainly be temporary exhibition boards on stands, to which you can then fix lights. From the point of view of convenience, I think this would be the preferred option. If there are any suspension points on the ceiling, you may be able to make a kind of lighting rig such as a horizontal board of reasonable length to the underside of which you can fix lights, but don't even think about this unless you have at least 4 mounting points available for wires plus 2 for safety chains (possibly the safety code for the venue may demand more than this). The whole object in any case needs to be to get the lights high enough to avoid glare and far enough away from the pictures to light evenly.

Best regards,

David

 

[notter]

Thanks for the reply, David. I really appreciate it.

Any idea where "temporary exhibition boards on stands" can be found? Is there a company that manufactures such items, or are they usually home-grown?

Thanks,

Ned

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

look around for some artist's easels or go to an office supply place and see what they have in the way of easels for whiteboards/newsprint tablets. They may or may not be affordable, but that's the kind of thing you need. If you're a really handy DIY'er, you can make something rather simple in a cruciform configuration with a rail on the bottom of the arm, an x-type base, and lean the upper part back at a sligt angle so you don't have to clamp the top of the frame as well. Then you have something to which you can clamp a mini-spot light of some kind.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Thanks for the reply, David. I really appreciate it.

Any idea where "temporary exhibition boards on stands" can be found? Is there a company that manufactures such items, or are they usually home-grown?

Thanks,

Ned

Don't know where you are located, Ned, but if it's in or near a major city, you should be able to find a company that rents exhibition equipment - they may do this more for business conferences and trade fairs than art exhibitions, but they will have the kind of gear that you need. Hopefully Yellow Pages will provide an answer!

Regards,

David