The Hard Life: Embracing and Experimenting with Small Light Sources
by Steve Korn, Seattle Editorial Photographer

“Avoid mid-day sun, it’s too hard and contrasty.”

“The larger the light source, the softer it will be, better get the biggest one you can.”

These sentiments are ubiquitous. We learn early on that hard light as a bad thing and should be avoided. Well, no one says that it’s a bad thing, instead they tell you, “It all depends upon the kind of look you want.” Funny thing is no one seems to want anything that doesn’t look like the light was run through a giant marshmallow.

It makes sense, when you buy your first light, you have to shoot it through something, what fun would it be to shoot bare bulb when there is a world of interesting modifiers to choose from? Umbrellas are a great place to start, and not long after you wonder how a soft box is different. Then you become curious about beauty dishes and before you know it, you’ve got strip lights, octabanks, soft lighters, reflectors, Chinese lanterns, light panels…don’t get me wrong, this stuff is all great and certainly fun to learn about. Trust me I’ve purchased all of the above at some time or another and try to use them when they seem like the right choice for the image in my mind. But, if we never step out from behind the giant wall of diffusion, we might never see the hard truth about hard light.

What I’ve learned about hard light is that it not only creates more contrast in the shadow areas, it creates more contrast in textured areas. I guess this is really the same thing, I think about texture as the small-scale shadows that fall upon a subject; the weave of a cloth, the pores on ones face, all more pronounced with hard light. Additionally, with more contrast comes richer tones.I feel that colors seem to be more saturated straight out of the camera when there is more contrast in the light. I think this goes hand in hand with the increase in texture detail. When the small-scale shadows are present upon a surface, the color of that surface will become richer as it is set-off by the presence of the subtle shadow which defines it’s texture.

More after the jump.

Below is the image that got me thinking about the value of small light sources.

Photograph by Steve Korn, Seattle

My niece, Alex, was shot with a single strobe, fitted with a 30 degree grid, just above the camera. Before processing this image had a strong sense of texture and color. Most of the time spent in post was simply clearing skin blemishes. The shadows are strong, and in this case I think they work well.

The image of trumpeter, Cuong Vu, below follows the same concept, this time using a 20 degree grid on a single strobe. In this case the strobe was placed camera left and close to the subject to run across his face. Again, the texture and contrast are strong providing the right amount of drama to accompany Cuong’s interview.

Photograph by Steve Korn, Seattle

For these images of dancer, Anh Nguyen, the background was lit with two strobes and Anh was lit with single strobe with a 20 degree grid. Leaving her body in shadow creates a strong illustrative sense of her lines and the movement of the fabric she is holding.

Photograph by Steve Korn, Seattle

Photograph by Steve Korn

In these shots of dancer, Christy McNeil, I have lit her face with a gridded strobe and used a bare bulb strobe about 20 feet back to light the white, wooden hoops she is holding.

Photograph by Steve Korn

So, what if you don’t want such strong shadows, but like the crisp quality of the small light source? The answer is to use the small light sources selectively in conjunction with fill lights. The image below of dancer Tonya Lockyer uses three lights.

Photograph by Steve Korn

The background light is to camera left and has a seven inch reflector. To create contrast, it was placed in such a way as to create light on the left side of the background and shadow on the right. Tonya was then lit from the right with a Mola Demi beauty dish which functioned to cast light upon Tonya’s body. To light Tonya’s face, a 20 degree grid was pointed from beneath her and to camera right. This makes her face pop out of the image against the shadowed background.

Another example of this approach is this image of bassist, Michael Barnett.

Photograph by Steve Korn

Using just two lights, Michael was lit by a Mola Demi on the bass side of the image, and a 20 grid on his face. As Michael’s face was turned to the shadow side of the image for this posed shot, the small gridded light not only illuminates but provides strong texture and contrast.

Author, Cherie Priest’s upper body is lit by a gridded beauty dish, however the ambient light is provided by a Westcott PokerLite, essentially a modern version of the Chinese lantern. The back walls are lit from each side, but the dramatic fall-off of the gridded light is tempered by the soft fill of the lantern. Her face has a crisply lit quality, but the shadows are not severe.

Photograph by Steve Korn

Finally, my favorite use of small light sources, as of late, has been a single source, bare, at a relatively large distance from my subject. By having model, Mariam Atnafu stand close to the background paper, the distance of the light easily fills the paper and her shadow becomes distinct. Because of the Inverse Square Law, the exposure that just sends the paper to pure white also exposes Mariam correctly. In the set-up image below, you can see that I actually used two lights to get twice the output. I placed their flash tubes close together to minimize the creation of a double shadow.

Photograph by Steve Korn

Below, you can see that the light on Mariam is crisp, contrasty and the colors are richly saturated. However, because the strobes are bare, light is bouncing all around the room, particularly off of the white paper. This helps to take some of the edge off of the shadows falling on Mariam.

Photograph by Steve Korn

Photograph by Steve Korn

Photograph by Steve Korn

I hope the images above inspire you to experiment with small light sources. They can provide drama, illustrative interest, and make the color and contrast of your images pop right out of the camera.

Thanks Steve. This may be an eye-opener for many photographers who have been ‘shadow-phobic’ due to too many years of bad information. I hope they all try working with hard light and see how much fun and dynamic it can be. Visit Steve’s website to see more of his wonderful imagery.

As always, follow me on Twitter, and visit the workshop page at Learn to Light for information on workshops.