When you photograph, you are painting with light. And in food photography, that light is often soft and ethereal, wrapped around a delicious slice of cake or bowl of soup with shadows subtly melting away into the background. But there is another kind of light, less favoured for food photography, yet once you know it, it can be your friend and allow you to produce food photos that stand out. That light is hard light.

What is hard light?

You can recognise hard light by the type of shadows it casts – hard light produces crisp, dark shadows where the transition from shadow to light happens quite quickly. The hardness or softness of light is determined by the relative size of the light source to the subject and the number of angles that light is coming from. So though the sun is quite large, since it is so, so far away from us, from our perspective, it is relatively quite a small light source.

On a cloudless afternoon, next to a window facing the sun, is where you can reliably find natural hard light.

Hard light in food photography

Hard light has been quite trendy in product photography for a while. But what’s exciting is that we’ve been seeing more frequent use of hard light in food photography in the past few years too. Hard light is popular in drinks photography because the direct light refracting through glasses and colourful drinks creates an intriguing and dramatic scene. And frankly, who doesn’t like drama? But hard light is good for much more than drinks. Depending on the story you want to tell with your photo, hard light can also be a way to;

• create bright, edgy images that accentuate vibrant colours and textures of food with contrasting shadows, 
• give a scene a vibrant summer-y feel (a personal favourite), or even 
• to create a sense of mystery or serenity 

The options are only as limited as your imagination.

Here are examples of hard light photography from some of my recent images. Notice how the intense shadows increase the 3-dimensional nature of these images? Like you can reach out and grab that marshmallow? This is what I love about hard light.

If you like the look of these, I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with hard light, and learnt a few things along the way I can share with you.

My top tips for hard light photography with natural light:

1. Cloudless days are best

A small light source from a single direction is what you need for hard light. Clouds diffuse the sun’s light, and since clouds are much closer to us than the sun, a cloudy sky means a (relatively) bigger light source, with light coming from multiple directions. Cloudy days are better suited for dreamy soft light photography.  

2. Pick a spot with direct sunlight

If your shooting spot is on the other side of the house to where the sun is shining down, you are receiving diffused light instead of direct light. I like to shoot next to a window where the sun is shining down. 

3. Block out other light sources

If you have light coming on to your scene from multiple directions, you will have softer shadows than intense, well defined ones. So draw those other curtains!

4. The farther the light source, shorter the shadow

You get short shadows at noon, and longer shadows as the day progresses. Think about the kind of shadows you would like for your hard light photos, and time them accordingly.

5. Incorporate shadows to your backdrop

Shadows cast from window panels, walls or other objects in the way of your light can serve as interesting ‘frames’. Incorporating these into your photo will result in an interesting image that is unique to you and your situation.

6. Embrace unpredictability

As fulfilling as natural light photography is, the sun is notoriously hard to manipulate. Delays would mean that your light has moved from where you wanted it to be – expect and accept that this will happen and shoot your shots anyway. Most times you will end up with something more amazing than you planned. When life gives you lemons etc.

I hope these tips would help you to try your hand at hard light or use hard light more in your photography. Tag me if you do! I would love to admire your creations.