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:
“The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.”
—Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921)