PHOTOGRAPHY IS ALL ABOUT LIGHT. The word, in fact, comes from ancient Greek. Photo means light and Graphis means to draw. Think about that for a moment. To take a picture is to draw with light. What a beautiful thought. The camera is our canvas and light is our brush.

That does of course mean that getting the lighting right is the single most important aspect of taking a good picture and all the best photographers will tell you that good pictures mean good light.

But what is good light? What is it that makes a certain set of circumstances so much better for taking pictures than another?

The answer depends largely on the subject matter. The question of whether you want to take pictures of landscapes or of people will determine which specific qualities you will want the lighting to have, and one of the most important qualities of light is how hard or soft it is.

The difference between hard and soft light

The words soft or hard light often make those new to photography think that it refers to how bright of dim it is. This is not true, what it actually refers to whether the edge of the shadow that it casts has a hard, abrupt transition from dark to light, or whether it has a soft, or gradual transition.

Light that comes from a single, point source, such as a naked bulb, and falls directly on the subject from one direction, without being reflected of another surface, is known as hard light. It generally casts dark shadows and produces high contrast pictures with deep blacks and bright highlights. The shadows also generally have a very distinct or hard edge, so that the outline of the object closely reflects the shape of the shadow.

Taking the most extreme example, a studio with black walls and a single unshaded light shining directly on any given object, such as a model’s face, can be described as hard. The nose will cast a harsh shadow, and the eyes will look deeper set and all the blemishes on the face will be accentuated. Not very flattering, but there are certainly situations in which you will be able to use it, such as when you are photographing Dracula…

To be fair, hard light can be used to great effect to photograph textures in objects or to show the rolling contours of a landscape, where using soft light would leave the photograph looking flat and uninteresting, but for portrait photography, soft light is, more often than not, the ultimate goal.

Soft light, as the name suggests, is the opposite of hard light. It means that the light that falls on the subject comes from multiple sources, from multiple directions or from a single, very large light source quite close to the subject. It does not cast deep shadows, and where it does, it has a soft edge, rather than an abrupt transition from dark to light.

In the most extreme example, soft light occurs when a subject is placed in a studio with white walls, roof and ceiling, and where multiple light sources shine not directly on the subject, but are reflected of the reflective surfaces before reaching it.

That does not mean that soft light cannot come from a single light source. The light on a sunny day, when you are not standing in the shade, is quite hard, and you will be able to spot a clear outline of your shadow on the ground. But step into the shade, and your shadow disappears. This is because you are now lit by reflected light, rather than by the sun directly. There may still be some areas where hints of a shadow can be seen, such as under your nose or chin, but these will be much less distinct and be in lower contrast to the highlights on your face.

How to create soft light

It should now be clear that reflected light is, generally speaking, soft light, and indeed the easiest way to create soft light is to bounce the light of a surface before it reaches the subject, or, where the light shines directly on the subject, to bounce some of it back from the opposite direction.

Light is bounced by redirecting it off a highly reflective medium, such as a white wall or ceiling or a specially made or improvised reflective object, such as a white towel or one of those windscreen reflectors we put in the window of a car to keep the sun and heat out. You could even use a large piece of white paper or even a newspaper. Essentially, anything that reflects light without adding a color cast to it will make a good reflector for most situations.

Most professionals, however carry an aptly named reflector around with them. These come in all shapes, sizes and colors and made from a variety of materials. Personally, I prefer the foldable, round cloth-and-plastic type, with one side silver and the other white. It is light, small when folded, durable and the silver side reflects a lot more light than the white, giving me flexibility.

If the direction of your light source can be changed, such as when you are using a small desk lamp, you can often redirect it to bounce of another surface before it hits the subject. You may for instance point the desk lamp at a wall, pointing away from the subject, this will effectively create a larger light source (the wall) which will cast a softer shadow. This method can also be used with dedicated flash guns with rotatable heads, where the head is adjusted to point at a white ceiling or a reflective wall. In the studio, this principle is used when the light is bounced of a reflective umbrella.

Shading the light

Have you ever looked at the average lamp shade, and wondered what its purpose is?

A lamp shade reflects some of the light coming from the bulb into a wider area, and effectively increases the size of the source of the light, and in doing so softens the shadows that it casts. This technique can be used on any light source. All you need is a large enough semi-transparent, diffusing material, such as tracing paper or a thin white sheet of cloth, to hold in between the point light source and the subject. This will effectively increase the size of the area of the light source to that of the diffusing material. In studio flash heads, this is normally achieved by means of a softbox.

What about hard light?

Hard light, as we have noted above, does have its uses. It creates hard edged shadows that will highlight the texture and form of the subject. Unfortunately it is much more difficult to create hard light if you are starting with a soft source. In a studio, you may be able to move your subject further away from the light, thereby effectively decreasing its size, or you may be able to substitute the large light source for a smaller one, such as by removing the soft box, but if you are working outside you may not have this control over the light and its distance from the subject, so the only option may be to wait until the clouds part and the light changes.