Softness/hardness of Various Light Sources
Most light sources have a non-negligible size and therefore exhibit the properties of a soft light to some degree. Even the sun does not cast perfectly hard shadows.
In "hard" light sources, the parallelism of the rays is an important factor in determining shadow behaviour.
The quality of light can be altered by using diffusion gel or aiming a lighting instrument at diffusing material such as a silk. When shooting outdoors, cloud cover provides nature's version of a softbox.
Read more about this topic: Soft Light
Famous quotes containing the words softness, hardness, light and/or sources:
“The little lifting helplessness, the queer
Whimper-whine; whose unridiculous
Lost softness softly makes a trap for us.
And makes a curse.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. Fettered words are terrible words. The writer doubles and trebles the power of his writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people. Something emerges from that enforced silence, a mysterious fullness which filters through and becomes steely in the thought. Repression in history leads to conciseness in the historian, and the rocklike hardness of much celebrated prose is due to the tempering of the tyrant.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“they appear youthful, rare
as the light of a happy eye, live with the grace
of all that in the mind is fleckless, free and
naturally to be desired.”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)