Light Clips

Soft Light: Afghan women in a shelter: The light entering through the windows creates the effect of soft light.

Diffused Light: (#11 on Big Picture) Girls react after colored powder is thrown on them: The light catches the powder in the air creating diffused light.

Hard Light: (#19 on Big Picture) A coal worker stacks wood : The harsh, short shadows denote hard light. The color of the light is also that of midday when the sun is high in the sky creating a harder light on the subjects.

, Frannie Fabian

Light Clips

This photo shows hard light because there is a single light source that is making the girls in the foreground have intense shadows on a slick black floor and the girls in the background are only silhouettes.

The is an example of soft light. The light wraps around the model's face.


This photo is a good example of diffused light because the sun it coming through a thick layer of smoke that is covering Cape Town, South Africa.

Courtney Ebert's Light photos

My hard light photo is one of monks. The light is very directional.

My soft light photo is one of an African girl crying. The lighting makes it more somber.

For my diffused light photo, I could not pick between two. One is underwater and the other is light coming through a haze.

Light

Hard Light

It's not always a bright, sunny day thing.

Soft Light

From Nat Geo's Feathers of Seduction article - no real shadows, everything just sort of glows.

Diffuse Light 

Not very journalistic, but it's an interesting use of cloud and shadow.

Hard, Soft, Diffused

HARD
-This photo is of an image that creates a prominent shadow and uses the sun as the direct light source. Additionally, details are lost in the wrangler's face and clothes.

SOFT
-In this picture (image 6 of 10, with the dog), no shadows are cast. It's not an especially dramatic photo, but the details are held across the frame.

DIFFUSED
-Finally, here, contrast and colors are reduced because of the weather. The only real color comes in the foreground with the skier.

Light photos: hard, soft and diffused

A little early, but here are my three images.

The New York Times has been doing a lot of narrated slideshows of Manhattan lately, and I've yet to find one that disappoints. This one is by photographer James Hill, who spent a couple weeks shooting in New York. I like the entire collection, but there are a few good examples of hard light toward the end, starting around 1:22 when he starts talking about Central Park. There's one of the subway at the end that I think is a good example too. He talks about New York's "unique light."

This photo is my soft light example from The Red & Black, taken on March 1, aka snowstorm day.

And last but not least, a photo with diffused light.