Sam Smith

Campus Lights

16 Feb 2019

As an astronomy student and hobbyist, light pollution has sort of become my environmental issue of choice. Not only is it an annoyance to astronomers, but also damaging to wildlife as well as our health and is a large energy sink. I have taken particular notice of the amount of light pollution on my university’s campus lately as I am back living on campus after 2 years of living elsewhere, and my dissertation involves using the telescope on the roof of the physics building. This is a university that seems to boast about being green but seems to ignore this aspect of the environment.

All of the photos in this series were taken between 11pm and 2am, outside of those times of the year when things stay open through the night (around exams and big deadlines) and mostly away from the residential areas, so this should show the darkest the university gets within term time.

I have been in contact with a relevant member of staff about the situation and they seemed to be very receptive to this and I am awaiting an update. My main goal with this project is to raise some awareness for this issue while also documenting what the campus looks like before it hopefully gets darker.

Campus Lights 1
Campus Lights 2

Campus Lights 3
Campus Lights 4
Campus Lights 5
Campus Lights 6
Campus Lights 7
Campus Lights 8
Campus Lights 9
Campus Lights 10
Campus Lights 11
Campus Lights 12
Campus Lights 13
Campus Lights 14
Campus Lights 15
Campus Lights 16
Campus Lights 17
Campus Lights 18
Campus Lights 19
Campus Lights 20
Campus Lights 21
Campus Lights 22
Campus Lights 23
Campus Lights 24

This series was shot on my Hasselblad 500C/M with 150mm CF lens and Rollei CR200 film, developed by Palm Labs in Birmingham and scanned with my Epson 4180.

References

  1. Catherine Rich, Travis Longcore. Ecological consequences of artifical night lighting. Island Press 2006

  2. Ron Chepesiuk. Missing the dark: health effects of light pollution. Environ Health Perspect. 2009 Jan; 117(1): A20-A27