Basics Of Photography: Hard Light and Soft Light
In the last article we talked about the physics of the light. In this one we are going to talk about the light in relation to photography. Normally photographers divide light in two different categories: Hard Light and Soft Light.
Hard light comes from a small source such as a lightbulb or the sun. Someone could point out sun is really big; well that’s true but is so far away that for us is just a small circle in the sky. The characteristics of hard light are basically strong shadows with crisp edges and normally good color saturation. This last point isn’t determined by hard light but the nature of light. Since almost all of the hard lights enhance the color saturation, is handy to associate color saturation to hard light. A camera flash is a source of hard light too.
Here’s an example of hard light:
Soft light comes from an area instead of a point. A cloudy sky where clouds cover sun light produces a very soft, diffused light. This happens because light isn’t coming from a single, small source but it comes from a big area. The amount of shadows, if there is, is really limited. The edges of the shadows are everything but defined. The big problem that occurs when shooting with a cloudy sky is that colours lacks of vibrance (tends to black and white). The beauty of soft light is that the subject of the photo is completely and uniformly illuminated.
Here’s an example of soft light:
Soft Light can be generated in the studio using normal lights (flashes, lightbulbs) and diffusers (also called softboxes). To recreate conditions similar to a cloudy sky you need multiple lights along with soft boxes. Lights need to hit the object from as many directions as possible to remove shadows.