Dr. John Nash Ott
Dr. Ott’s "day-job" was that of a banker, with horticulture and time-lapse photography as hobbies. These hobbies soon sprouted into a pioneering career in the new field of photobiology; the study of light on living cells. Starting in the 1930s, Dr. Ott bought and built more and more time-lapse equipment, eventually building a large greenhouse full of plants, cameras, and even self-built automated electric moving camera systems (the first movie camera motion control systems ever built) allowing for cameras to follow the growth of plants as they developed. His time-lapse sequences showing flowers opening and fruits ripening were used in several Walt Disney nature documentaries which aired on the first Chicago television station and later in the Barbara Streisand feature film, "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever."
While working as a consultant for the Walt Disney "Secrets of Life" film series, Dr. Ott found that he could not successfully grow plants indoors under commonly used artificial lighting. His research found that all living organisms need the full spectrum of light provided by the sun in order to thrive. In addition he discovered that the cathode radiation emitted by all, common fluorescent tubes caused plants to mutate and form unnaturally.
Dr. Ott discovered that the growth of plants could be manipulated by varying the color temperature of the lights in the studio, with some colors causing the plants to flower and other colors causing the plants to bear fruit. Dr. Ott even discovered ways to change the gender of plants merely by varying the light source color-temperature. His cinematography of flowers blooming in such classic documentaries as Disney's Secrets of Life (1956), pioneered the modern use of time-lapse on film and television. Dr. Ott wrote a book on the history of his time-lapse adventures, My Ivory Cellar (1958).
Dr. Ott’s experiments with different colored lighting systems and their effects on the health of plants led to experiments with light on the health of animals and individual living cells, using time-lapse micro-photography. Dr. Ott observed that only a full spectrum of natural light, which includes natural amounts of ultra violet and infra-red light, worked to promote optimum health in people, pets and plants. Dr. Ott made a film, Exploring the Spectrum in the 1960s.
Eventually Dr. Ott turned his attention towards monitoring the beneficial effects of full spectrum lighting on certain human physiological conditions. Dr. Ott discovered that the color temperature of lights affects mental health, with balanced light reducing hyperactivity in classrooms and reducing negative behavior in prisons and mental health facilities. Dr. Ott discovered that even an individual cells' ability to properly reproduce in plants, animals and humans is affected by variances in lighting. Most importantly, he realized that light entering the body through the eyes controls and regulates our brain chemistry which in turn affects how we feel and function. A second book and best seller, Health and Light, detailing these experiments followed in 1973.
In the 80s, Dr. Ott also published a series of seven articles in the International Journal of Biosocial Research (Tacoma, Washington), a medical journal that studies links between physical and mental health. Titled Color and Light: Their Effects on Plants, Animals, and People, the articles summed up Dr. Ott's decades of independent research, which was contrary to the established "wisdom" of sunglass manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. These companies were “scaring the daylight out of us” by promoting the sudden negative effects of natural sunlight. These companies claimed that the sun was 'now' dangerous to our skin and eyes and that we need to protect ourselves with their expensive sunglasses and sun screen lotion.
Since the invention of the light bulb and the beginning of "three screens" syndrome (cinema, television and computer) much of humanity has progressively become indoor, contemporary cave-dwellers unwittingly depriving themselves of the sun’s vital life-giving energy. At the time, Dr. Ott's research efforts generally met with polite indifference from the scientific community but he soon began to attract attention from a wider public audience with his theory of mal-illumination, a condition Dr. Ott likened to malnutrition. “Light is to mal-illumination as food is to malnutrition.”
Over the years, Dr. Ott expanded his research and was published in many educational and scientific journals, including the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Technical Conference of the Illuminating Engineering Society, and the Fourth International Photobiology Congress at Oxford.
"When we speak about the quality of light and its importance to the well being of all living organisms, the contributions of Dr. John Ott stand out above those of other researchers in the field." — Dr. Jacob Liberman Light Medicine of the Future
