DIVISIONS OF LIGHT : PART - 1 aka FRONT/FLAT & BACKLIGHT & SOFT LIGHT
In the previous blog, we discussed about light and it's importance. We have encountered how light can change the emotion/mood of a photograph. In the previous blog, we just barely classified light i.e natural and artificial. But actually there is more to it.
Based on the light direction and light intensity, light is classified/divided into so many types. We want to know these divisions to understand role of light completely in the photograph. So with that being said, let's start DIVISIONS OF LIGHT PART-1 aka FRONT/FLAT & BACLIGHT & SOFT LIGHT.
FRONT/FLAT LIGHT :
By definition, Front light occurs when the light source is directly in front of your subject. Because of placing light source directly in-front of the subject, there would be no shadows appearing on the subject. Front lighting is mostly used when you are going to show your subject without any flaws. For example, when you are shooting people who have wrinkles, then front lighting would be able to cover those wrinkles by not letting any shadows of the wrinkles on the face. And people with acne can also be added in this group. Their acne would be covered partially due to the heavy lighting.
In the first picture, it's a general case of a front light photography. You see the light should be in-front of the subject and that's the case here. For most of the babies, photographers use front lighting style. Because their skin is smooth and their skin don't have any structure to show, so front-light would be a good option to choose.
In the second picture, it's a food photography front-light example. For most of the food photography, people will use front-light to emphasize the smoothness and to give that shiny look on the surface/skin of the food. If you have texture in the picture, it would appear as a rough surface.
BACKLIGHT :
Well, going with the definition it is : The shots that are composed when the light source is behind the subject, with the subject in between the light and the camera. You see, everything couldn't be framed into words, we have to see some examples/situations to understand them in-depth. Well, the popular example would be a Sillhoute. Because of the lighting in the background, the subject would be appearing as a black body. We would be getting an outline of our subject in the picture. We wouldn't be getting any details of the subject.
In the first picture, because of the backlight, we can able to see the outline of that little kid's dance pose. Of-course we can't able to see the details of that kid, like, that kid dress or color of dress, etc. Well, that's the thing with the backlit light source.
In the second picture, a couple is being shot against a beautiful sunset. The main thing here is : "showing the beauty of a relationship". Here the photographer choose it to do with the help of sunset and in particular with the sillhoute. The light setup that is shot in these 2 photos is natural backlit light source.
SOFT LIGHT :
We will get soft light when our light source is diffused. Because of the diffused light, there won't be any sharp details or importantly shadows. Shadows wouldn't be sharp instead they look like kind of smooth and less intense. And the main advantage is : there would be a lower contrast between darker and lighter parts of the image. Because of the diffused nature, there won't be any hardly lighted parts in the image thus making the image smooth. Soft light is used when capturing portraits for smooth skin. Because of this diffused nature, the texture wouldn't be hard pressed.
In the first picture, it's an adorable cat. Because of the soft light there are no hard textures in the picture. And because of that, the image is appearing as a smooth living thing.
In the second picture, it's the core point of the soft-light concept. Hard light produces sharp shadows. As you can see, umbra region is sharp and there is very less penumbra region. And we can differentiate it from umbra easily. Whereas coming to soft-light part, umbra is not sharp, it's diffused and penumbra region is more and it looks like "dark region is smoothly spreading out". This is a good explanation of soft-light using shadows.
TAKEAWAY NOTES :
- Front light is used when you don't want to show the imperfections in your subject.
- Front light is generally used for babies, food photography, etc.
- Backlight is used when you want to show your subject's outline instead of subject details.
- Backlight is need not to be an artificial source. Sunsets and sunrises can also be used as backlight sources.
- Soft light is used when you don't want to focus on texture.
- By using soft light, we can make the subject look smooth.
NEXT-UP :
- DIVISIONS OF LIGHT : PART - 2
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