Makena Murray

VP
1/18/19
Lighting Safety Essay

The Importance of Lighting Safety

Lighting safety is one of the most crucial things in a video career one must

understand. For example, if a photo shoot were to have three lights-two Omni and one

Tota-the bulbs can get hot very fast. To avoid burning your hands, it’s necessary to

wear gloves when going to adjust it. There are many aspects of lighting safety that are

all absolutely necessary to learn.

Both Omni lights and Tota lights draw a lot of wattages. It’s important to know

how many watts you can put into one circuit without tripping it. In order to determine

how many watts a circuit can hold, we use a simple equation: amps=watts/volts. The

typical amount of amps in a house is 20, and the USA safe standard amount of volts

100. Omni lights have 500 Watts and Tota 800. For a photoshoot in a home where you

bring two Tota lights and one Omni, you first add 800 and 800. Then you’d add 500 to

get 2100 and divide by 100: 20=2100/100. It would come out to 21. Since 20 is less

than 21, all three lights would not be able to be plugged into the same circuit. An Omni

and a Tota could be in the living room while the second Tota could be plugged in in the

kitchen. Living and dining rooms have a connected circuit and kitchens have one

separate circuit. Bathrooms are usually included in the same circuit as bedrooms.

Bedrooms are combined 2-3 rooms at a time. It’s important to be aware of these

different circuit paths in case separate lights need to be plugged into different rooms.
 Another safety tip is not touching the bulbs of the lights with your hands. It’s very

dangerous! You should always wear work gloves when handling both Omni and Tota

because it is very hot, but also because the oils from your hands may cause a bulb to

explode when it heats up. You should ​always ​use the barn doors to move the light on

the light stand instead of covering the light with any fabric. You can also put a white

umbrella over the light to create soft light. To do that the umbrella must be 2-3 feet away

from the light so the umbrella doesn’t catch fire. You have to be cautious when dealing

with lights in a photoshoot so the bulb and your hands stay intact.

Lastly, it is important to wrap your cords neatly. Disorganized cords that are

wrapped into a ball are very hard to undo and can break the smaller wires within them

and cause them to not work. When wrapping up a coil, the method is over and under. It

may seem hard, but it’s doable. Another thing about plugging cords in is that you don’t

want people to trip over them. That’s what gaffers tape is for. Gaffers tape is tape used

for keeping cords taped to the ground to ensure the safety of people working around

them when on set.

There is much more precaution to a live set up than one might think. Even

though a Tota or Omni light was on for a few minutes does not mean that it isn’t hot,

because it is. If you follow these guidelines then you will be ensured a good photoshoot.