Re: Re: Hard/soft light

#19921
Duncan Rawlinson
Keymaster

Thanks for posting these up!

Lesson 7 is a treat to critique when the images are this good.

Lesson 7: Assignment Assignment Title: Soft vs. Hard Lighting

In this lesson you will take two photographs. Your first photograph must be taken in a soft lighting situation, achieved artificially or naturally and the second photograph should be a fairly exaggerated hard lighting photograph. Again, you can achieve this hard lighting situation naturally or artificially.

You’ve submitted two images that clearly illustrate your understanding of this lesson.

Image 1:
[attachment=0:2rs3s1yc]hard-light.jpg[/attachment:2rs3s1yc]

1:
This is the highlight of the frame. As such you may want to consider putting it in a more prominent position. Top right or left would work in portrait.

2:
This element is slightly cut off. In many cases this isn’t a problem but for an image with a grid and some symmetry to it like this it makes the image feel cut short.

3:
Here is a potential crop/reframing for this shot. Of course the aspect ratio is incorrect on my little box but you get the idea. Of course you lose out on the grid style of the image but it’s a possibility.

4:
This little straight down shadow clearly shows the straight down harsh mid day sunlight. In other words, you know what hard light is…

Now your second image is quite nice as well.

The only thing I can suggest on this image is to check out your noise level. You may have had your image set on a highish iso. Often when you’re shooting in soft light you have to crank up the ISO just be aware of the noise this adds to the frame.

Nice work on these.

They’re quite nice!