20 Sep Landscape lighting Products are the Brushes and Paint : Landscape Lighting Designers Are The Artists
By Mike Gambino
I say this as not to lessen the importance of quality landscape lighting products that are designed and built for high performance and to last. However in the wrong hands even the best products available will not guarantee the best results. Just like a novice race car driver with the fastest and best tuned engine will not win the race against the better prepared more experienced competitor who can take even inferior equipment and make it perform better and come out on top. 
Landscape Lighting products are the brushes and paint. It’s what talented and experienced landscape lighting designers do with them that counts.
This is something I myself had only realized in recent years. For many of us trying to make a living from our lighting talent, there can be constant pressure to try the latest and so called greatest products, never-ending equipment advancements, especially as new products come out and our contemporaries proudly tote their latest upgrades. Of course, there’s no denying that our tools of the trade will inevitably affect our final product, but I’ve also come to believe that our equipment is not the ultimate, determining factor of the quality of our landscape lighting projects.
In fact, we Landscape Lighting designers, as artists, are the determining factor, not our equipment.
Landscape Lighting Designers Are The Secret Ingredient
If our equipment were the determining factor as to whether we would be a masterful landscape lighter or not, then excelling at any craft would be easy. Possessing a set of expensive, high end cookery would allow you to whip up a meal like the famous Chef Ramsey, right? Or getting your hands on high quality tools and expensive materials to build a house would allow you to organize a team and throw up your dream home in a snap, right?
Wrong. Talent and artistry come from within, and not from the tools you use. Learning how to use your equipment is the easy part. If that were all there was to it, we would all be great landscape lighters.
Every Landscape Lighting Designer has A Unique Vision.
There’s so much more that comes into play. Every landscape lighting designer has a unique vision, as well as the ability to spot the potential within a scene to bring attention at night to what might not be so attractive during the day. We individually choose how to compose and light our subjects, possess an understanding of our subject (if we’ve done our homework) and decide how to tie this all together within the scene. We then go on to choose the style or feel of the space in the layout and installation phase. It’s all up to us. Our artistic flair and the personal touch we add to our lighting designs is what makes our work different than others.
The Best lighting products are the ones we are most comfortable using job in and job out and that will last the test of time with a minimum amount of maintenance.
Vision, artistry and intrinsic talent are all important attributes of quality landscape lighting designers. As far as composition and compelling subject matter to light, I believe you can light an equally compelling subject with equipment you are comfortable and used to working with because ultimately the brand of equipment you use does not automatically determine if you’re successful. In my case, I started my career using products from a large name brand lighting manufacturer but for the last 20 years have exclusively used my own brand of lighting products that I have developed over the years. The second half of my career has seen greater success than the first half however that probably has more to do with the fact that I have mastered the use of 5 or more main fixture types used on every project. Yet every project is individual and unique and no two are ever alike because of the way I use these same products differently in every individual lighting scene. Proving that it is not necessarily the fixtures and lamps themselves that are making the magic but the creative force behind them that manipulates and uses them differently on every project.
Final Thoughts
It’s taken me years to realize that we, as individual artists, are the secret ingredient, not our equipment. The lighting fixture does not the landscape lighting designer make.
It is simply a tool to express our creativity !
This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. 
Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 30 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.Gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .
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