Creating summer ambience is just a spotlight away.
With warm nights inviting long stays on the porch, summer is the perfect season to consider what your eye is drawn to as you glance around your environment.
Choosing seasonal spotlight ambience does more than curate a mood: it pulls all the attention to the object of your choosing, letting the rest fall away.
“It’s important to think about from which vantage point you’re appreciating the light,” says Adam Foeller, co-owner and operations manager at Victoria’s Light Right Outdoor Lighting. “If you’re approaching the house, the features outlined by the lighting will be different from the curb, versus what you see from inside the house.”
While string lights, lanterns and deck illumination can bring warmth to any evening, spotlighting, also known as uplighting, is the perfect way to showcase special features you’ve worked hard to add to your landscape — like that fountain, Japanese maple, or even a row of strategically placed grasses.
“A spotlight can be used to highlight or hide something,” says Joshua Julien, Light Right’s CEO and lighting designer. “How the eye works, if there is an unsightly electrical box, we can make it disappear just by illuminating something else. From the design aspect, we take into account what this is going to look like from different angles, and how dim you need the bulb for the desired effect.”
Spotlights stay out of sight most of the day, placed discreetly in the ground or high in trees, and these little moodmakers can create phantasmic shadow play, or enhance the existing illumination of a home.
Spotlighting can be a DIY project, but going the professional route might save money by avoiding costly lighting-quality mistakes and safety hazards (like hanging “moonlighting” from a 30-foot tree).
If you do take it on yourself, there are a few things to consider. Ensure an even and consistent placement between lights when along a flat surface. If highlighting a feature, make sure the angle illuminates the “best” side and doesn’t create unintended shadows that leave an eerie backdrop — unless that’s part of the motif.
Try not to overcrowd the lights, and lean towards symmetry whenever possible. Finally, remember your layers. Spotlights are just one way to bring dimension to a night space.
“A real factor to consider [in choosing lights] is how much use you think you’ll get out of your outdoor space,” says Foeller. “When you light something up it becomes enticing and your backyard becomes a toy you want to play with again. In the dark, you can forget it’s even there.”
