Thinking about Soft Light
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Window light. A good start, made better with a little bit of work
Hello folks. This time, I want to talk on the subject of soft light. Let’s define soft light as light that does not produce harsh shadows achieved by having a surface area much larger than the subject and in very close.
Think outdoors on a very overcast day. The entire sky is the surface area and it is a lot closer than the source by about 93 million miles. That’s a good example of a soft light. Think indoors with a flash or strobe into a really big octa or softbox, close to your subject.
We hear a lot about light wrapping, which is crazy, because light does not bend around corners unless influenced by a massive gravity field. What we are seeing instead is the light coming from multiple directions either from that overcast sky or being reflected from the interior of a softbox.
Why soft light in the first place? Soft light is less likely to reveal textures, it’s not directional and does not produce strong contrast. Those are very good reasons for soft light if those are needs for your work.
Sometimes, folks get caught up on spending money on gear and don’t achieve the goals that they desire because of a perception of lack of gear. So let’s go simple. We will look at working indoors since your ability to control the sun and the atmosphere is quite limited.
To get soft light indoors is quite easy and costs about five bucks.
Find a window that let’s in light onto your workspace. If it let’s in enough light to cover your subject, you are in a good place. Now take a white shower curtain liner and use painter masking tape to tape it over the entire window. Done, you have a lovely soft light source.
But wait you say! What about fill, what about filling darker spots or even creating some contrast on the side opposite the source?
Head to the Dollar Store or whatever they call it where you are. Purchase a few sheets of foamcore, your optimal choice being white on one side and black on the other. However if you don’t have the luxury of different colours on different sides, then splurge on white board and black board.
White board is a perfect fill board and you don’t need to spend money on a fancy reflector setup. If it gets wrecked you are out a couple of dollars. If you get a mark on it, don’t worry. I did see a person being concerned about getting smudges on their white v flats and it’s a fair question and those smudges and marks will not make any difference at all. It has less specular reflection than corrugated plastic and is easier to cut.
Black board is a superb negative fill board as it helps increase contrast and effectively “sucks” away reflected light.
Gear does not make an image no matter how much you spend or what label is on it. Simple solves a lot of issues in many ways, and is a very effective self-study and production tool.
Now if you have to work outdoors in direct sun and need soft light and cannot wait for overcast you can get very big scrims in frames for this purpose. This stuff works but remember that a big white diffusion panel also doubles as an excellent SAIL, so if you use one, you need heavy stands and lots of weight to prevent things from flying off and damaging someone or something.
Try managing your own light and grow your skills. Until next time peace.
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I'm Ross Chevalier, thanks for reading, watching and listening and until next time, peace.
