Methods For Achieving Your Desired Outdoor Lighting Effect
You have the power to decide on the lighting effect that you want to acquire for your garden. You can choose from a subtle lighting or from a functional or a more dramatic light like a chandelier should you have a covered deck or gazebo. You can achieve all of this with proper placing of lights.
The basic methods that you can choose from to be able to obtain a particular effect are the following:
The first one is called down-lighting. This is the most common among the other methods. It casts its light downwards. You can put lights on roofing or branches. This will make the tree look like it is naturally lit by the moon. Though this is easy to design, it still has drawbacks. The fallback with this method is that sometimes it can create excess glare. In addition, it usually has a lot of fittings so it consumes a lot of energy.
The other method is the up-lighting. This is the less common method. As the name suggest it casts its light upward. You can place this kind of lighting on the ground or low on the tree. This will produce a lighting effect that seems to shine from within. This method is great if you just want to have minimal glare and an even or uniform lighting.
You can also choose from front-lighting. This is done by directly shining the light into the object. This is a bit common but with this type of lighting, the subject tends to look flat. This is because with front lighting, no shadows are cast.
The back-lighting method is used if you want to accentuate an object. You will be able to produce silhouettes with this method.
Whatever method you choose, whether it is up, down, front or back-lighting, it will still be dependent on your taste, style, desires and lighting needs. See what effect would best suit you and incorporate that in your place.