Kobus van Rensburg, owner of home automation company Electronia, which carried out the installation, explains, "The new villa at the farm, where visitors come to observe wild animals, has some amazing features; one of them is a bronze leopard that runs across the water at the western side of the house."
Very high profile VIPs are regularly entertained at the game farm, so it was important to have the statue looking at its best.
"We tried various types of lights but couldn't get sufficient illumination on the statue," explains van Rensburg. "The problem was that when it was viewed from inside the villa at night, glare on the inside of the windows hid the outside water feature. By using the Source Four XT, we were able to blast the leopard with enough light to make it clearly visible even with all the villa's chandeliers on."
Electronia ended up creating a gobo of the leopard's silhouette, so that they could hide all unwanted light from around the leopard. This made best use of the high powered optics that the Source Four has become famous for, while also taking advantage of the fixture's weatherproof housing.
Located in South Africa's northernmost province of Limpopo, on the border with Botswana and Zimbabwe, the area has long, hot, dusty summer days, with occasional heavy thunderstorms, so a rugged, weatherproof housing was needed. The fixture's 12,000-hour, 150W high intensity discharge lamp makes it ideal for long-term use by untrained personnel, who may be uncomfortable or unwilling to undertake regular maintenance.
(Jim Evans)
