Photography Lighting 101: Light Quality
As photographers, light is the cornerstone of everything we do. We use it to tell stories. It's how we capture moments and show emotion. It’s our creative partner. And it's important.
Because of its importance, most of us have preferences for the kind of light we like to work with. Those preferences shape our style and if we’re in business, our brand.
For the first twelve years of my business, I branded myself as a natural light photographer.
My style was soft and airy. That's the kind of light I preferred. And over time, that was the kind of light my clients expected to see in their images when they hired me.
When I first learned to use artificial light it, therefore, became imperative that the images I made with strobes and flash looked like the photos I was used to getting when working with window light. I wanted that kind of light and made learning how to create it my goal.
To help me reach that goal, I studied my natural light photos.
I noticed the quality of light I preferred. I paid attention to how I positioned my subjects in relation to the windows in my studio. I looked at the highlights and shadows I was used to getting as well as the shape and position of my catchlights. I noted my preferences and found that understanding them and being able to clearly articulate them made recreating them with artificial light much easier.
What I learned was that mastering lighting, natural or artificial, requires the same knowledge base.
We must understand light quality so that we can consistently produce and control it. We also must understand light direction so that we can use it with intention to add shape, dimension and visual interest in our images.
Understanding these two things, light quality and light direction, are at the core of what we do photographers.
Soft Light
Quality of Light: Hard Light & Soft Light
Hard Light
Light is often described in one of two ways, hard or soft.
Hard light is the kind of light we’re used to seeing on bright sunny days. This kind of light is very contrasty. It’s characterized by having sharp, well-defined shadows and looks, well, hard. It accentuates detail and highlights texture.
Soft light is the kind of light we see on overcast days, or in open shade. This light can still have beautiful contrast, but the transition from highlight to shadow is more gradual and less defined.
Details and textures will be less noticeable when using soft light as well, making it a favorite among many portrait photographers, myself included.
Controlling the quality of light
We control the quality of the light we are working with by paying attention to the size and distance of our light source and by adding or removing diffusion.
Diffusion
Diffusion is the act of spreading light from a single light source out evenly across a larger surface to reduce its intensity.
Clouds do this for the sun.
On clear days the sun produces hard light with sharp, defined shadows. On overcast days, however, clouds break up the light, acting as a giant diffuser. This results in soft light and less defined shadows.
Anything that spreads light out acts as a diffuser. Curtains, sheers, blinds and frosted glass are commonly used to diffuse light when working inside with windows. They help spread out the light and create a softer appearance.
Light modifiers, like softboxes, umbrellas and octoboxes usually come with the option to add or remove diffusion, depending on the kind of light your are wanting to create.
Small light sources produce harder light.
Size and Distance
Quality of light can also be determined by the size of the light source you’re working with, as well as the distance of that light source from your subject.
Small light sources, such as small windows and small light modifiers, focus the light into a beam, much like a spotlight. The result is harder light with and well defined shadows.
Large light sources, such as large windows and large light modifiers, however, spread the light out, producing light that wraps around the subject resulting in a softer look and less defined shadows.
Large light sources produce softer light.
What makes a light source “small” or “large” is relative to the size of the subject you’re photographing and how close to the light source that subject is.
A two foot window, for example, can be either a small or large depending on what you’re placing in front of it.
The same window will produce softer light on a small subject, like a flower, but harder light on a large subject, like a grown man. This is because relative to the flower, the window is quite large, but relative to the man, it is not.
Likewise, that same window will seem larger the closer your subject is to it and smaller if your subject is placed farther away. We can look to the sun as a great example of this. The sun is huge. But because it is so far away, it appears small in the sky and produces hard light on clear days.
This is important to note when thinking about how to create the kind of light you prefer to work with.
The Takeaway
If you want hard light, remove diffusion, use a small light source (relative to your subject) and/or move your subject away from the light.
If you want soft light, add diffusion, use a large light source (relative to your subject) and/or move your subject closer to the light.
These rules are the same whether you are working with natural light or artificial light.
So think about the kind of light your prefer. And use that knowledge!
If you prefer soft light, then you’ll want to work with large light sources relative to you subject!
If you prefer hard light, choose a smaller light source to work with!
Easy. Peasy.
