I know that this is a basic question but, is it the larger the light source and the closer the light source - the softer the lighting????

Thanks in advance for the help...I have just got my self confused thinking about it too much.

Rhonda

Because nobody has taken a stab at this, I will try. The short answer is yes, a large light source in close will give you soft light. If you think of the sun, it is a very large light source but because it is so far away it actually is a point source of light unless it is difussed. If you have clouds that diffuse the suns rays the lighting can be very soft, in the event of cloud cover the sun would be the origin of light but the actual light source would be the clouds.
The same applies if using umbrellas or softboxes. A large softbox far away will still give hard light with hard shadow edge transitions, a small softbox in very tight to the subject would give a soft quality of light, with very diffuse shadow edge transitions.