Kens Photography Blog

It’s important to remember that specular highlight is basically a mirror of your lightsource.

If you put up a mirror so it reflects your light the inverse square law is not in effect for the mirror (The speculars become smaller, but does not lose intensity). No matter if the light is close to the mirror, or far away it will reflect the light at the same intensity.

There is a very important clue here… Specular hightlight intensity never changes no matter the relative distance to the light, but diffused light does.

So moving the light further away from the subject makes specular hightlights even more intense because you see them relative to the diffused light. Moving the lights say douple the distance will make the diffused light 1 stop darker, yet the specular highlights will be at the same intensity, just smaller.

So moving you lights closer to the subject will make the specular hightlights less harsh because the diffused light is now brighter relative to the specular hightlights.