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strobe lighting

noun

  1. a high-intensity flashing beam of light produced by rapid electrical discharges in a tube or by a perforated disc rotating in front of an intense light source: used in discotheques, etc
  2. the use of or the apparatus for producing such light
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Example Sentences

"Dear Valued Customer, we wanted to get in touch with you as soon as we could to make you aware that the content warnings for Dark Noon have now been changed and are as follows: Contains potentially distressing themes. Depictions of physical and sexual violence, haze and strobe lighting."

From BBC

The film was shocking and appalling and shot in a dizzying style with circling camerawork and strobe lighting that was as likely to nauseate viewers as the vicious and visceral content on screen made them wince and cringe and head up the aisles.

From Salon

Strobe lighting froze them in brief snapshots; in one such, they reached for each other.

The film-within-a-film ends with an on-set disaster — a burst of nightmarish imagery, all retina-scalding neon hues and strobe lighting effects — that might, for Noé, qualify as a kind of miracle.

You can assume that there is going to be a movie about Ferguson, and I’m sure they are probably shooting it now, and in the part where Michael Brown was killed you can be sure that they’re going to go in slow motion, they’re going to start with strobe lighting, the camera angles are going to get weird.

From Slate

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More About Strobe Lighting

What does strobe lighting mean?

Strobe lighting is the kind of rapid flashing produced by a strobe light—a type of specialized lamp that produces a continuous series of short, bright flashes of light.

Strobe lights are also called strobes, stroboscopes, or stroboscopic lamps.

Strobe lighting has the effect of seeming to freeze the movement of things in motion. This happens because the thing that’s moving—such as a person dancing—is only lit up for a fraction of a second.

Strobe lighting is associated with its use at concerts, raves, and dance clubs, but it also has technical uses in photography. Because strobe lights produce very short, extremely bright bursts of light, they can be used in conjunction with a camera to photograph a rapidly moving object, such as a bullet, for such a short duration that it will appear to be standing still in the resulting photo. Strobe lights also have other scientific uses involving the measurement of vibration and other types of high-speed motion.

Strobe lights look like they’re just flashing on and off, but this effect is usually produced by an electric discharge in a gas or a disc that rotates in front of a light source.

Example: I hate going to concerts that use strobe lighting—I end up having to close my eyes most of the time to shield them from the bright flashes.

Where does strobe lighting come from?

Strobe lighting is a relatively recent term. The first records of it come from around the 1970s (with strobe light first recorded in the 1960s). The word strobe is also relatively recent, first recorded around the 1940s. It’s a shortening of the word stroboscopic, the first part of which comes from the Greek strobos, meaning “a twisting” or “a whirling.” (The term stroboscopic is used in terms like stroboscopic lamp and stroboscopic microscope.)

Strobe lighting might look cool, but it can cause seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. It can also cause discomfort in people with sensitivity to light. Some TV shows and movies show a warning before they start informing viewers that strobe lighting effects will be used.

Did you know ... ?

What are some synonyms for strobe lighting?

What are some words that share a root or word element with strobe lighting

 

 

What are some words that often get used in discussing strobe lighting?

 

How is strobe lighting used in real life?

Strobe lighting is closely associated with its use for concerts and raves, but it also has technical and scientific uses.

 

 

Try using strobe lighting!

Which of the following words is LEAST likely to be used to describe strobe lighting?

A. flashing
B. pulsing
C. uninterrupted
D. intermittent

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