I love old lighting fixtures. Ok, I love all lighting fixtures…

I picked this up on eBay a while ago from California, and thought it would cool to share.  (Shipping this from CA to TX wasn’t cheap by the way.)  It’s an old 10k Fresnel that was apparently used on Disney sets for years.  (That’s 10,000 watts, ten-freaking-thousand.)  I actually can’t even power the lamp to 100% here at the church.  I would need a 100amp dimmer, and obviously power to the dimmer, which would require a generator in my case.  (Time for a house power disconnect!)

 I actually called that number in the picture (click for full size) to see if it was still functional.  A lady on the other end told me I had called the Disney production support department for all the movie and TV show sets.  Cool.   Not sure why I would ever need it…but it is cool to know this light was probably used on some famous show or movie.

I also found this a little gem for about $20; an old but un-used 1000 watt incandescent light bulb.  The filament glows beautifully; nice and warm.  It fits nicely in the 10k, and I can actually power a 1000 watt bulb with our house lighting power. So, I placed the 1k in the 10k fixture just to see what it would look like coming out of the lens.

The result is just beautiful…such a soft warm light from an old rustic lighting fixture…(You can see how the bulbs are similar in size)

 It’s a passion of mine to find old lighting fixtures and technology and finding a way to make it useful again.  Sometimes some of the oldest things can be the coolest and most unique.  I hear a lot of lighting designers in churches say how if only they had the lastest and greatest moving lights/LED…etc…they could do this or that, and it would be “awesome.”  While that may be true, I think it’s also important to look at every type, time period, and field of lighting and seeing how you can use different avenues to get creative with what you are doing.