Good Night, and Good Luck....

I saw this photo once, of Tesla? The guy who invented the Tesla coil (what are the odds?).

Anyway, he also invented a pair of shoes with four-inch soles that would ground him while he worked in his lab. In this picture, Tesla is sitting in his lab, wearing the shoes, and reading a book by the light of the long tendrils of the sparks arcing from his transformers.

And I remember thinking... wondering... what exactly am I looking at? Is it a photo of a guy reading, or a guy reading in the shadows the sparks throw on the walls?