Hard Light
Hard light sources cast shadows whose appearance of the shadow depends on the lighting instrument. For example, fresnel lights can be focused such that their shadows can be "cut" with crisp shadows. That is, the shadows produced will have 'harder' edges with less transition between illumination and shadow. The focused light will produce harder-edged shadows. Focusing a fresnel makes the rays of emitted light more parallel. The parallelism of these rays determines the quality of the shadows. For shadows with no transitional edge/gradient, a point light source is required.
When hitting a textured surface at an angle, hard light will accentuate the textures and details in an object.
Read more about this topic: Soft Light
Famous quotes containing the words hard and/or light:
“If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the canonical Scripture.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“We saw one schoolhouse in our walk, and listened to the sounds which issued from it; but it appeared like a place where the process, not of enlightening, but of obfuscating the mind was going on, and the pupils received only so much light as could penetrate the shadow of the Catholic Church.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)