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:
“It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven’t done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75)
“God, for wise reasons, has made our affairs in this world, almost as fickle and capricious as ourselves.—Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other; and he that knows how to accommodate himself to their periodical returns, and can wisely extract the good from the evil,—knows only how to live.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)