I’m very affected by visual things and I’m not afraid to say it.
I love appreciating the attractive things in life: scenery, color, people, decor, it could be anything…
I’m also really influenced by setting in general. Dim lighting can hamper my mood and productivity significantly, and whenever I move into a new place, I can’t do anything until I’ve adjusted the layout and decor of my room in a way that reflects how I think it should look.
Maybe I’m just inflexible?
I also get bored, and end up moving things around from time to time just to see what it looks like a different way round.
But I think most people appreciate seeing the world in a different way from time to time, which is why I love light shows. Light up your world in a different way!
Mother Nature showing off her Northern Lights
The Northern Lights are bound to shake you out of an everyday and passive ‘take for granted’ mode. Reminder: the world is actually a very beautiful and crazy place.
The Northern Lights or aurora borealis (the name coming from Aurora, the Roman Goddess of Dawn, and Boreas, the Greek for North Wind) is a naturally occurring light display occurring high up over the Arctic region.
There’s plenty of science behind why it happens but I think it’s more fun to just watch and marvel at these vast expressions of greenish glows and faint lines of red, as if some large supernatural being is using our sky as their canvas.
There’s a reason why so many descriptive names like the ‘dance of the spirits’ has been given to the Northern Lights; when you see it up close yourself, the phenomenon is impossible to capture with just one name.
If you want to go and be reminded of how small you are and how amazingly big the world is, the Telegraph’s 10 best ways to see this special light display are pretty handy.
A magical, winter, wonderland of lights
For a Christmas that’s something special, 34th street in Baltimore, Maryland has been unofficially dubbed ‘Christmas Street’ for its annual effort of the best neighborhood display of Christmas lights.
Go and stand amidst all the lit up houses, reindeers, Christmas trees, Santas, snowmen, sleighs…you’ll see how it got its name.
The lights at Christmas Street are not about attracting tourists; it’s as if the minute the lights go up, everybody can partake of something different to be celebrated during the otherwise natural darkness and bleakness of the winter months.
There’s nothing better to create that special feeling of festive ‘magic in the air’.
Lighting up Niagara Falls
As if the most powerful falls in North America isn’t enough, each winter, Niagara Park in Ontario puts on its own winter festival of lights: A spectacle of night time illumination over the falls and a changing array of colors: White, blue, purple, orange, amber, green…..and to top it off, there’s an epic firework display every Friday.
The shows began in 1860 when lights like those used to signal for help out at sea were laid down to welcome Prince Charles, then electricity was used in 1870 and colors appeared in 1907.
Basically, it gets bigger and better all the time.
The dancing fountain of Dubai
So, we’ve had light, we’ve had water and light, and now we have music, water AND light!
The Dubai Fountain is the world’s largest dancing fountain, syncing 50-storey high jets of water with 1.5 million lumens of projected light, all in rhythm to a range of classical, Arabic and world music.
The best thing is it performs daily so you can check it out whenever you want.
Think it will get boring?
My friend in Dubai walks past it every evening on her way back from work and never gets tired of it.
About the author: Amalia Dempsey is captivated by light, which is why she blogs for Luma Lighting. A little bit of imagination and you’ll be amazed to see what can be done with a few outdoor lanterns and outdoor bulkhead lights.
Credits: Photo courtesy of Larissa Sayer.