The Flash Photography Field Guide

Hard Light Portraits

When shooting a portrait, the default position for many photographers is to instantly reach for a soft and flattering light using the largest light source possible.

This diffuse light nicely fills in any wrinkles or imperfections, and is an easy, but often overused, form of lighting. Alternatively, you can use hard light to get some great portraits. A good rule of thumb is that the harder the lighting, the more dramatic the picture. Of course, it’s always a compromise. You wouldn’t use hard light to shoot a flattering portrait of an elderly lady, for example, but you would use it for a gritty photo of a similarly aged, weather-beaten fisherman.

Hard light often comes into its own when photographing male subjects who are either ...