Pixiq

In my first post in this Capturing the Light series I tried to demonstrate how completely light can alter an image. Now let’s take apart light a little more to better understand it and its affects.

Light has four distinct characteristics that every photographer needs to be aware of-- the Quality of the light, the Quantity of the light, the Direction of the Light and the Color of the light.

The Quality of light it is the most difficult of the four aspects to understand and use. By Quality I mean the range of texture of the light from hard to soft light.

At one end of this scale is high contrast light, it is a harsh, “hard” light produced by a point source like the sun, a candle, a bare light bulb or an electronic flash. It is easy to identify hard light because it produces distinct shadows that are sharp edged and dark.

At the opposite end of the scale from sharp light is diffuse or soft light. That’s the light from a broad source like the light from an overcast sky or the light produced by a studio flash in a big softbox. Where hard light comes from a distinct point diffuse lights seems to come from all over. You can recognize diffuse light by the way it wraps around objects generating few shadows and those it does produce are weak and soft edged. But why does it matter for a photographer out taking pictures?

Because, simply put the quality of light conveys mood and feelings and if you get the match between subject and light quality wrong your photos won’t work.

The words themselves tell it all. Hard light conveys hard, sharp edged stuff. Tough. No ifs ands or buts. Soft light is hazy, dreamy, and squishy. Diffused and glow-y it conveys a whole different set of feelings.

In daily life we encounter a wide range of qualities of light and we rarely take note of them. Falling somewhere between the two extremes the quality of light  is something we take for granted, but as a photographer you cannot take the quality of light for granted.

I live in the South of France and painters like Gauguin and Van Gogh were drawn here by the quality of the light. It is a very strange light. We are near to the Mediterranean and the air though dry near the ground is moist higher up. This makes the light soft while retaining enough hard sharpness to produce vivid colors. Painters love this light and the way it illuminates the landscape and try to capture its quality in their art; so do photographers.

You learn a lot about the quality of light by just looking. When you are out shooting, it’s a two step process. First you need to stop for a minute and before you shot a frame consider the light. How soft or hard is it? Then based on that judgment consider what sort of subjects photograph well with this kind of light.

The two photos in the gallery with this post are examples of how the quality of light affects an image. Both photos are taken from the same position with the same camera and lens. Both were taken at about the same time of day a few weeks apart.

In the first one the sun has broken through the clouds and like a spotlight has lit up the ancient French village of Saint-Genies de Fontedit while leaving the rest of the countryside in shadow. Daylight is a combination of the harsh light of the sun (a point source of light) and sunlight diffused through the atmosphere producing the blue sky. On overcast days the point of light of sunlight is diffused (and reduced in intensity) as it passes the clouds. The light bounces off of water drops in the clouds and is broad and soft. But after a storm as the clouds begin to disperse, sunlight pokes through the holes in the cloud cover with a very hard light. It’s lost the softening effect of both the clouds and the blue sky and the result is this dynamic image.

The other image was taken after a light rain shower when the sun had begun to warm the earth and the moisture on the ground rose into the air. The light shining through the moisture laden air is diffused at ground level producing a softening haze. Now the village looks like a water color sketch with the hills fading in the mist. Everything is flat and subdued. It is a big difference due solely to the quality of light.

Learning about light and how to use it is your job as a photographer. After all taking pictures without mastering light is like trying to write a novel before you’ve learned to spell—it gets you nowhere.

More Capturing the Light soon.