Hello everyone, today I would like to talk about my favorite subject, and that is light. Before we started to take photography seriously, we took lighting for granted. We never thought about where it came from, the intensity, or even the color of it. Well, I’m a little crazy about light and I believe it’s the most important element in photography because if there is no light, you have no photograph. I thought I would start a series on the subject of lighting, and I thought the best place to begin is a short and sweet lesson on light quality.
When you hear or read the terms hard/soft light, people are referring to the quality of the light, more specifically not the light itself, but the shadows. A soft light is a light that appears to “wrap” around your subject, feathering or smoothing the transition from light to shadow. A hard light of course is the opposite effect, it will create a more abrupt, sharper transition between light and shadow.
The two main factors that determine the softness of light are:
- Size of the light source. The larger the light in relation to the subject, the softer the light , or the more it “wraps” around the contours of the subject.
- Distance of the light source. The closer the light is to the subject, the softer the light to shadow transition.
Why does the quality of light matter?
Lighting in general effects the mood of a photo. Shadows typically are used to hide things, whether it be an ugly background or maybe you are trying to say something by shadowing the eyes of a face. Shadows also create depth and generally make the photo more interesting. Knowing about and controlling the quality of the light is another tool for your artistic expression.
A small light source, harder edge separating light from shadow. higher contrast and more detial
A large light source, softer edge separating light from shadow, lower contrast and less detail
Now, all light is actually hard and soft. Whaaaat? It’s because every light based on the two factors from above can create both softer or harder shadows. Try this at home, an ordinary light bulb is smaller than a human face, place the light at a 90 degree angle, examine how the shadows appear when the light is at different distances while maintaining the same angle. This will work best if you’re in a pitch black room and your light bulb as your only light source.
Another example is the sun, it’s over 100 times the diameter of the earth, so you would think it’s a soft light source. Well, being that it’s 93 million miles away, it actually becomes a small light source, producing hard, well defined shadows on clear days.
When the clouds roll in and cover the sunlight, you will notice that the light is more evenly distributed. There is little or no shadows and you have low contrast images.
How do the clouds alter the quality of the light?
Well, you will have to wait ’til next week when I explain about controlling the light. So until then, start paying attention to the light inside and out.
Thank you for reading and feel free to leave any comments or questions.
Peter
Peter Pechacek is a photographer and filmmaker in Orlando, Florida. He will be contributing weekly on Techie Tuesday.
