Having the Right Type of Lighting

Hey guys I'm back with another blog! Today's topic will be centered around lighting. Lighting is major when taking a photograph. It determines how bright or how dark a photo will turn out. Personally the best lighting to me is using natural light and it's what I use in almost all my photos. But I want to learn how I can use different types of lighting for my photos. According to Henry Carroll author of Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs there is hard light and soft light. 

"Hard light comes from one direction and is typical of a spotlight or bright sunshine. Due to its intensity, one of the most common traits of hard light is high contrast. Hard light causes anything in its path to become a highlight, while everything remains dark" (Carroll 62).

"Soft light is less intense meaning there isn't such a stark divide between the highlights and shadows. Soft light still casts shadow as it very often comes from one direction, like hard light. But the shadows aren't nearly as dark and dramatic. Rather then being void of black, detail is still very visible" (Carroll 64).

Here are two photos that I took which represent hard light and soft light:

Hard Light 

Soft Light

The photo on the top is an example of top light since there is a high contrast and since this was taken at a concert everywhere is dark except for the stage where the light is being directed to. The photo on the bottom is an example of soft light since there's less contrast and it has that 'soft' look. Also everything is in detail there are no dark areas. 

Thank you for reading this post and hopefully you learned something about lighting like I did! Stay tuned for more and don't forget to comment and answer the question! :)

Question: Does the setting of where you want to take a picture affect how the lighting will turn out?

Citation: Carroll, Henry. Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs. Laurence King Pub. Ltd., 2014.