The latest designer lamps and home accessories from Hinkley, Quoizel and Schonbek are beautifying springtime holidays like never before.  Bring enlightenment and renewal into your home with outstanding lamps, chandeliers, pendants and energy-efficient outdoor lighting.

Hinkley Lighting has been proud to offer its lighting products to consumers through Capitol Lighting as another family-owned and operated business that prides itself on exemplary service and quality. —Rick Wiedemer, President, Hinkley Lighting

-Quoizel designs are timeless, blending effortlessly with changing decorative schemes unaffected by passing trends, fads or style crazes.

-The Lenox Lighting line is graced with the finest silk shades perfectly shaped and proportioned to maximize lighting effects. The china is crafted to surpass the highest quality standards in the industry. Every porcelain finial is designed exclusively to match the coordinating lamp.

-Quoizel Lighting stands apart in distinction with an outstanding collection of mirrors, unique ceiling fixtures, superb outdoor lighting, stylish bath lighting, and one-of-a-kind tiffany style lamps.

-Quoizel artisans work tirelessly to ensure their Tiffany lamps are composed of individual handcrafted pieces of art glass.  Some of the Tiffany designs are reproductions of original Louis Comfort Tiffany and others are Quoizel’s unique creation. Outstanding new Tiffany style lamps employ color combinations in materials such as jade, agate stone and mica.

*Schonbek is a member of the Swarovski Company.

This Father’s Day, get out of the tie and money clip routine with 15 bright gift ideas that shine a light on Dad’s favorite past times. Is your dad a grill master, an adventurer, an artist or a hardcore movie buff? Or is he one of those guys that has his own personal style that can’t be nailed down to just one? Whatever the case, chances are good that we’ve got a lighting gift to match his style:

I have a great deal of interest in digital photography, but my life is as crazy as anyone else’s. My son, family, and work keep me busy from dawn to midnight every day. I’ve never had time to cultivate any photography skills, even though I’ve always been very interested, sitting on the edge of my seat, if you will, for a chance to take some digital photos in order to learn a little about how capturing light can create astonishing works of art.

My interview with Matthew Danser had given me my long sought “excuse” to try out some photography techniques. But it also required that I put in an honest effort. The thought in the back of my head: These photos are going to suck. Probably a lot. And they will most likely be seen by the thousands of people who visit this blog monthly. Second gulp.

But I’m the kind of person so riddled with ADHD that even my paranoia about being judged on a mass scale can only last about three minutes before the audacity to try anything resurfaces and action is taken. So here’s what happens when a total amateur who has no idea what he is doing tries to “Paint with Light.”

A one-dollar flashlight from – you guessed it – the Dollar General. One dollar. Even. Gotta love it. Especially since it’s all I could afford, seeing as how I’m still paying off the aforementioned Nikon that I bought to take photos of our baby son. (True, a million pictures have been taken of him during his first year-and-a-half on Earth. However, 999,999 of those photos were taken with an iPhone. Go figya.)

THE PLAN, STAN:

The plan was to wait until it was dark in the apartment and do some light painting. I knew that I could use the Shutter mode on my camera to set it to take exposures of up to thirty seconds. I saw that my camera also had an option for bulb release, so, invoking Danser, who recalls how his girlfriend had to hold down the button on his camera for a full thirteen minutes, I determined that if I asked really nicely, I might be able to persuade my wife to hold down the trigger to get exposures longer than thirty seconds. Otherwise, thirty seconds was my window of time to do all the light painting I could.

I started off pretty timidly. I had seen photos online in which people used long exposures to create squiggly lines. The most popular examples are pictures of traffic at night, headlights and tail lights streaming, giving you a sense of the fluid motion of busy intersections. You’ve also seen those nature pics in which streams and rivers and clouds and stars become gauzy with movement because of long exposures.

But what I really like about Danser’s work is the use of color. The effect of running inside the hut and popping off red-gelled flashes shown at the beginning of this blog post (Matthew Danser! And happy lightpainting, everyone!